The Beit brothers played a significant role in establishing deep-level mining along the Witwatersrand Reef during the turn of the previous century, as well as developing new extraction methods. Born in 1853 in Hamburg, Germany, Alfred was the eldest son and second of six children of an affluent family of gemstone traders in Hamburg, Germany. His younger sibling was Otto, with whom he developed a close and special bond during their boyhood days.
Alfred was a good scholar, and after his schooling he was apprenticed to Jules Porgès & Cie, an Amsterdam diamond firm, where he developed a talent for examining and grading various stones. At the age of 22 he was sent by his firm to Kimberley to purchase diamonds during the halcyon period of the diamond frenzy in South Africa.
By adapting well to the systems and conditions
