Ceres Oils

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Business: Early 1900s Petroleum company

"Horatio Bottomley did not take too seriously the set-back be had met with on the South African market (tin mining in Kuils River). His interests were widespread and varied. Indeed, before very many months were up, he was back again promoting a fresh company at the Cape, this time in another picturesque district of the Colony. “Ceres Oils” was the promising title. Until then nobody had heard about oil there, nor, indeed, anywhere else in South Africa, but somebody brought to Horatio’s notice the fact that near the little fruit-growing town of Ceres there was a seepage of a substance looking rather like petroleum. That was enough: Ceres Oils were launched with a flourish of trumpets. This time, however, the sceptics were on the lookout and the trumpets sounded only to die." (Rosenthal)
  • Horatio William Bottomley (1860-1933) was one of the most notorious British figures of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras - a charismatic but deeply fraudulent financier, journalist, newspaper proprietor, populist politician, and wartime propagandist.
We couldn't find any further info about Ceres Oils.

Sources

  • Shovel and Sieve. Rosenthal, E. c.1959. George Allen and Unwin: London.

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