Chambishi is a town in Kalulushi District in the Copperbelt Province of Zambia. According to the 2021 Census its population stands at slightly above 11,000. It is located on the T3 Road (Kitwe-Chingola Dual Carriageway) between the cities of Kitwe and Chingola.
It was re-established in 1963 as a company township for the mine workers of Chambishi Mine which was under Chibuluma Mine of Kalulushi. This was after an announcement by Sir Ronald Prain, Chairman of Roan Selection Trust, in May 1962 that the company was going to open up the Chambishi open pit-pit mine at a cost of 7.5 million British Pounds.
Chambishi has been under civic administration of Kalulushi Municipal Council from 1963, another mining town on the Copperbelt Province of Zambia.
Etymology
The name Chambishi comes from two Lamba words "Cha" and "mbishi". Cha means "belonging to" or "an area of" while "mbishi" is a Lamba word for a zebra. The area was home to larger herds of zebras a century ago. Therefore, Chambishi means a place of zebras.
History
George Grey founder of Chambishi
Captain George Grey is credited to be the founder of Chambishi in 1899. He was a prospector for Tanganyika Concessions, a company formed by Robert Williams, a former associate of Cecil Rhodes.
The same year 1899 Grey visited a village in North-Western Zambia under Chief Kansanshi who showed him a nearby copper mine, to which Grey gave the chief's name.
Grey with four prospectors and 25 armed Africans, claimed the Chambishi, Nkana (Kitwe) and Kansanshi copper workings on the southern side of the border. He also played a major role in discovering major copper ore bodies in Katanga Province of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
He died in 1911 at the age of 45 in a Nairobi hospital, Kenya after two of his bullets failed to stop a charging lion on the Kapiti plains.
William Collier a prospector working for Sir Edmund Davies, pegged claims on the Luanshya Mine and Bwana Mkubwa deposits in 1902, making the year one of the important ones in the history of mining in Zambia.
The following year Collier pegged further claims around the ancient workings at Chambishi, where the peggings of an earlier prospector, George Grey in 1899, had been slightly off target.
Real impetus came after the First World War
After the First World War the demand for copper by the automobile and the electrical industries skyrocketed.
Another important development was the treatment of lower grade ores using the flotation method by Minerals Separation Limited of London. Copper sulphide ores in Northern Rhodesia became more attractive than oxide ores in Katanga. This is because the recovery of copper from the mine's ores improved from 50% to 90% . This last discovery changed the outlook for Zambia forever.
Through various agents, Cecil Rhodes, after whom Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) were named, obtained mineral concession rights from Chiefs and as a result, claimed ownership of mineral right in Zambia; his company, the British South Africa Company, retained these until the independence of the country in 1964.
After realizing that mining was a labour and capital intensive operation, the BSAC decided to change the policy of granting prospecting licenses to individuals as it had done in the past, instead companies with sound financial means were invited to prospect over larger areas.
This prompted well financed concerns with technical expertise to come on board. Alfred Chester Beatty, a London-based mining financier whose holding company, Selection Trust Limited (Roan Antelope Mine, Chambishi, Mufulira and Bwana Mkubwa) provided some funds in 1920; and Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, founder of Anglo American Corporation (Nchanga, Nkana, Bankroft- Chililabombwe Mines), joined forces in 1924.
Chambishi develops
Though copper was discovered at Chambishi in 1899 and rediscovered in 1902, the mining camp was not born until 1927 when the board of Selection Trust Limited in London approved a development programme and drilling started.
In 1927, Chambishi's white total population was estimated to be around 50. The number of indigenous Lamba people was estimated to be above a couple of hundred. Chief Nkana was the senior traditional leader in the area.