Lieutenant Charles Felix Barclay, Royal Engineers, was killed in Italy on April 5th, 1944, at the age of 42.
After receiving his training at the Camborne School of Mines and obtaining a first class Diploma in 1922, he was employed from July, 1923, until February, 1925, by Wheal Jewell and Marytavy Mines, Ltd., as assayer and surveyor at their arsenic mine in Devon.
In the following three years he was assistant surveyor to the Champion Reef Gold Mines of India, Ltd., and during the year 1929 was employed in a similar capacity by Roan Antelope Copper Mines, Ltd., Northern Rhodesia.
He returned to England in 1930 and was engaged at the South Crofty and East Pool tin mines in Cornwall for some months. In April, 1932, he was appointed surveyor and clerk of works to Christy Bros. of Chelmsford, working for two years on two hydro-electric schemes in West Devon.
From April, 1934, to January, 1935, he held the position of underground shift boss and later section boss at the Halkyn United lead mines in North Wales, after which he paid a two-months’ visit to the Hollinger and McIntyre gold mines in Ontario.
Mr. Barclay returned to England to spend a year on his own account pursuing his study of old tin and Wolfram mines in West Devon, and then, in 1936, took, up the position of assistant government mining engineer and sub-inspector‘ of mines to the Government of Southern Rhodesia. He remained there for two years, and in July, 1938, was appointed to the underground efficiency department of the Randfontein Estates gold ‘mine, Transvaal.
From the beginning of his career, Mr. Barclay had shown the greatest interest in the study of old workings in South and West Devon, about which he had collected a wealth of information which he had hoped to publish. Early in the war, however, he joined the Royal Engineers, and it was during active service in Italy, while serving in a bomb disposal unit, that he was killed by the explosion of a bomb from which he was removing the fuse.
Lieutenant Barclay was elected a Student of the Institution in 1921 and was transferred to Associateship in 1929.
Vol. LIV (54), Trans I.M.M. 1944-45, p. 257
