Today in 1907: Largest Diamond Ever Found Given to King
The Cullinan Diamond, the largest ever discovered and weighing 3,106 carats, is presented to King Edward VII at Sandringham House in Norfolk on his 66th birthday.
The giant rough diamond was found on in January 1905 at a mine in Cullinan (near Pretoria), South Africa, by the mine's manager Frederick Wells. It was then purchased by the Transvaal Colony government and given to the King to help improve political relations after the Second Boer War. Getting it from South Africa to England required some carefully planned subterfuge. The real rough stone (weighing about about 621 grams) was shipped to England in a plain box via standard post, while a heavily guarded decoy was sent on a steamboat. The plan worked.
King Edward VII initially hesitated to accept the gift, having been advised by British Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman to decline it, though he was later persuaded by Winston Churchill. When the rough Cullinan Diamond was officially presented to him at Sandringham House, the King accepted it graciously. He asked his colonial secretary to announce that he accepted the stone “for myself and my successors” and directed that it be “kept and preserved among the historic jewels which form the heirlooms of the Crown.”
The King entrusted the cutting to Joseph Asscher of I. J. Asscher in Amsterdam. In February 1908, after weeks of study, Asscher cleaved the stone in two. The rough eventually yielded nine major diamonds, known as Cullinan I to IX, together with 96 smaller brilliants and some unpolished fragments.
Cullinan I, the Great Star of Africa, is a pear-shaped diamond of 530.2 carats, and was set in the Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross. For most of the twentieth century it was the largest cut diamond in the world, and it remains the largest clear cut diamond.
Cullinan II, the Second Star of Africa, is a cushion-shaped stone of 317.4 carats, set in the front of the Imperial State Crown. Whilst Cullinan III and IV, of 94.4 and 63.6 carats, were worn together by Queen Mary as a brooch, and later by Queen Elizabeth II, who called them “Granny’s Chips”.
