William Henry Argall died at Hove, Sussex, on April 23rd, 1926, at the age of 70. He was born at St. Austell, Cornwall, in 1855, and received his education at Breage and Helsten.
ln 1870 he definitely decided to adopt the mining profession, and commenced a course of study in the local science and art classes, during which he was awarded prizes for a paper on the ‘Elvan Courses’ of Cornwall and for work in connection with the vanning and assaying of tin ores, as well as a prize uttered by the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society for a map of the Great Wheal Vor mines.
He entered the employment of the Great Wheal Vor United in 1872. In 1873 he went to South Wales and spent twelve months on iron works and collieries.
In 1874 he went to Spain to join the staff of the Linares silver-lead mines, where he remained for almost seven years. He returned to Cornwall to take up an appointment as assistant manager under his father, the late William Argall, on a group of tin and copper mines. Two years later, after making inspection of mining properties in Italy and France, he proceeded to the Republic of Colombia, where he took up his duties as inspecting mining agent on the eight gold mines of the Frontino and Bolivia G.M. Co. He was compelled to resign this appointment through ill health and on his return to Europe paid a visit to Spain. He then went to Mexico, where he was appointed superintendent of a large silver mine. In 1887 he sailed for New Zealand and shortly was appointed manager of the Kapanga Gold Mining Co.’s mines at Coromandel, Auckland. He remained in New Zealand for about 38 years, returning to England in 1925.
Mr. Argall was elected a Member of the Institution in 1893.
Vol. 36, Trans IMM 1926-27, p. 526
