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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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Jameson Raid
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Invasion of the Transvaal from Mafeking on 29 December 1895 by Dr Jameson and some 600 men; it ended ignominiously, four days later and 23km/14m short of Johannesburg, with 16 dead and Jameson arrested. The raid was a major factor in the build-up to the *Boer War, particularly when it became known that *Rhodes, the prime minister of a neighbouring state, was ultimately responsible. The plan had been for the raid to coincide with an uprising of disaffected British (the uitlanders) in the Transvaal, but this never materialized.
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Leander Starr Jameson (1853–1917, bt 1911) was a doctor in the Kimberley diamond-mining camp before becoming a close colleague of Rhodes. He spent several months in London's Holloway jail for the raid, but returned to South Africa and by 1903 was occupying Rhodes's previous position as prime minister of the Cape Colony.
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