James Rochfort Maguire

James Rochfort Maguire CBE MP (4 October 1855 – 18 April 1925) was a British imperialist and Irish Nationalist politician and MP in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. As a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party he represented North Donegal (1890–92) and as a Parnellite Member he represented West Clare (1892–95). He was a friend and associate of Cecil Rhodes (1853–1902), and was one of the three men who signed the original concession on which was based the British South Africa Company, of which he was president in 1923–25.

He was the second son of John Mullock Maguire, rector of Kilkeedy, co. Limerick, and his wife Anne Jane née Humphreys. He was educated at Cheltenham College and Merton College, Oxford, where he obtained first classes in mathematics and jurisprudence. He was elected a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford in 1878 and was called to the bar in 1883, although he never practised the law. He married Julia Beatrice, eldest daughter of Viscount Peel, a former Speaker of the House of Commons, in 1895.

While at Oxford, Maguire became friendly with Cecil Rhodes. In 1888, Rhodes sent him with Charles Rudd and Francis Thompson to negotiate a concession of land and mineral rights in Matabeleland from Chief Lobengula at Bulawayo. This was signed on 30 October. The British South Africa Company was chartered the following October and Maguire was associated with it for the rest of his life.

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