TODAY IN KIMBERLEY’S HISTORY 1 JUNE

George Alfred Lawrence Green, despite being dubbed the “Prince of Journalists” by Cecil Rhodes, and who was the Editor of the Diamond Fields Advertiser from 1898 to 1910, is not very well-known in Kimberley’s history. In fact, his son Lawrence is better known because of his countless and enjoyable books on South Africa’s history.

Born in England in 1868 to a relatively poor newspaper reporter and a lady of high society who had “married below herself”, he was educated at private institutions in Portsea England before leaving school at age 15 years.

Initially employed to address wrappers for the local Portsmouth newspaper deliveries he was soon transferred to the editorial department as a cub reporter, a four year apprenticeship at that time before becoming a fully-fledged reporter. After a stint as the London based correspondent for an English newspaper from India, he set sail for Cape Town South Africa, arriving in 1888 where was employed by Frederick York St Leger as a reporter on the Cape Times.

It was as the Parliamentary reporter that he made an impression on Cecil Rhodes, the Premier of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896, although they only met once Green moved to Kimberley as Editor of the Diamond Fields Advertiser in 1898.

George married Katharine Muriel Bell, daughter of the Reverend G Bell of Warwickshire England) on St Valentine’s Day 1899 at the St Saviour Church in Claremont Cape Town.

The young couple then settled in Kimberley shortly before the Anglo-Boer War began on 11 October that year, the siege of Kimberley starting on 14 October. Katharine kept a very well written and entertaining diary of the siege, and well worth a read. (It is on the Internet).

She moved from the family residence to the Grand Hotel for safety and security reasons as she was pregnant at the time, and it was during the siege that her first child, the author Lawrence Green, was born. Another two children, Rita Green, and author Rosemary Weir were born to the union.

George Green was very much favoured by Rhodes during the siege and the former Premier regularly sent him cuttings from various English newspapers smuggled in to add variety and spice to a newspaper struggling for newsworthy stories.

In fact, it was a Rhodes-prompted “story” about Kimberley being in dire straits in early February 1900 that saw the DFA cease publication for a few days and Green go into hiding, believed to be underground but more than likely at the Sanatorium. He had incensed the military leaders both inside and outside of the besieged town.

The relief of Kimberley in that same month February 1900 and the end of the war on 31 May 1902 saw George revert to the normal daily newspaper editions Monday to Saturday.

This lasted until 1 June 1910 when he was appointed Editor of the ailing Cape Argus, which he saved, and eventually retired from as Editor-in-Chief in 1946.

On the political scene he was one of Kimberley’s “Ticket of Four” parliamentarians for the Cape Colony in 1908, and in 1910 was a member of the first Union of South Africa parliament.

George Green, the “Prince of Journalists”, died in Cape Town in 1949.