Gems Legend series 16

Campbell Bridges – A True Renaissance Man

Visionary, Geologist, Miner, Environmentalist, Entrepreneur—and not least of all—the Discoverer of Tsavorite… Campbell Bridges was all of these things and more. He touched countless lives and his impact on the gem world has been felt in so many ways.

By Cynthia Unninayar

Born in 1937 to a Scottish mother and English father, Campbell grew up in southern Africa where his father was working before Campbell’s birth. As an adult, after his degree in geology, Campbell stayed in Africa, a continent he considered home.

The young man made the first discovery of green grossular garnet in 1961 in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), while working for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, which was exploring for beryl deposits. (At that time, beryllium was thought to be the best metal for lining atomic reactors.) He described the incident: “One Sunday, when I was off duty, I set out to explore an area close to the top of the nearby hills. As I was making my way up the edge of a steep gully, an old rogue buffalo charged out of the bush straight at me. I quickly jumped into the gully but the animal followed me along the edge of the ravine for a while. Finally, he gave up and went back into the bush. I continued upward, inspecting the rock exposures in the bottom and sides of the gully. Near the top of the hill, an outcrop contained small bright green crystals. This was my first encounter with green garnet.”

In the mid-1960s, Campbell moved to Tanzania, where he made his second discovery of green garnet in 1966. “It occurred in a small hidden valley in a low range of hills just over 100 km southwest of Mount Kilimanjaro, about 13 km southeast of the village of Komolo.” The deposit yielded some of the largest tsavorites ever found, but his mine was ultimately nationalized by the Tanzanian government.

After moving to Kenya, Campbell’s third and most important discovery of this beautiful green gemstone was in 1970. Again, in his words, “I had located a small range of gray, humpbacked hills in southeast Kenya, 135 km southeast of Mount Kilimanjaro, not unlike the hills of Komolo in appearance. More importantly, these hills formed part of a belt of similar rock types to those in which the green garnet of Tanzania occurred. By the end of 1970, I had found my first Kenyan green garnet in these hills and, in 1971, I pegged the first blocks of mineral claims.” 

The mining claims were in an uninhabited area near Tsavo National Park. “Elephant, lion and other wild game were abundant,” he reminisced. “To keep cool during the scorching days of the hot summer months, we constructed a sturdy tree-house in a large gamble flam tree on the side of a hill with a magnificent panoramic view out over the plains to the east. At various times, the flam tree would blossom and surround the tree-house with beautiful orchid-like flowers.”

In the beginning, no one really knew what to think about the green gem—calling it “just garnet”—but one person who realized it was something special was Henry B. Platt, President of Tiffany & Co. He followed Campbell’s discovery with great interest and was instrumental in giving the stone a name. Some people thought that the green gem should be named campbellite, in honor of its discoverer, but Campbell “felt strongly that the gem needed to be named for Tsavo.” Platt agreed, and in 1973, the gem had its own identity.

    In 1980, near his first discovery, Campbell and his team developed the Scorpion mine—named because of the numerous large scorpions found at the site—located in the Taita-Taveta District of southeast Kenya. It turned into the world’s most important and consistent long-term producer of the green gem.

Over the years, Campbell had a major impact on the community. His son, Bruce, recalls: “My father created an industry that didn’t exist before. He felt strongly about creating organizations like the Kenya Chamber of Mines—he was the Founding Chairman—which was designed to help local miners have a stronger voice and be able to petition as one. He also wrote standards for the industry such as the guide to artisanal mining.”

A strong believer in corporate social responsibility way before his time, Campbell gave medical and liabil­ity insurance for his workers, which helped create a standard for compensation at other mines in Kenya. In addition to helping miners and the local communities, he also was an environmentalist and worked to protect the trees and animals in the area. He also created a water catchment system and set up a solar power facility. As for mining, Campbell believed in tunneling as far as possible because it was far less destructive to the land.

In addition to discovering tsavorite, he was also the first person to bring tanzanite to the United States for identification shortly after it was discovered in the late 1960s in Tanzania. He introduced Tiffany and Co. to tanzanite, and Henry Platt made Campbell Tiffany’s official consultant on tanzanite.

His tsavorite discovery made a huge impact not only on the miners who brought the gem to the surface and to market, but also on the entire gem and jewelry industry. Today, the green gem is considered one of the finest and most beautiful stones in the world. Jewelers around the world use it in a wide variety of beautiful styles and designs. The gem world went into a state of shock on August 11, 2009 when the news broke that Campbell Bridges had been murdered. He was driving to the mine with his son, Bruce and four employees. Suddenly, a group of 35 bandits and claim jumpers, armed with spears and knives, ambushed them. Bruce and his employees succeeded in fighting off the attackers, but not before Campbell was stabbed to death.

After years of searching by the Bridges family, eight of the assailants were found and put on trial, which lasted five years. During this time, the mine remained closed, although Bruce Bridges continued to pay all the workers. Finally, four of the eight defendants received sentences of 40 years without parole.

In January 2015, the mine reopened with a larger scale of operations than before, aptly continuing Campbell’s gem legacy. But 18 months later, because of incessant threats against the workers, the mine was closed again. It remains closed to this day.

While Campbell’s legacy will be forever linked to the discovery of tsavorite, he will also be remembered for his contributions to the Kenyan industry as a whole, which included bettering the lives of artisanal miners, along with his efforts to protect the environment of a country he loved. Tragically, his life was cut way too short, but his memory lives on…the memory of a true Renaissance Man.

All photos are courtesy of the Bridges family unless otherwise specified.

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TAG : Gem legend, Campbell Bridge, Visionary, Geologist, Miner, Environmentalist, Entrepreneur,  United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, Garnet, Renaissance Man, Green Garnet, Tanzania, Kenya Chamber of Mines—he, tsavorite, Kenyan industry