James Chapman Brown died suddenly of heart failure at Que Que, Southern Rhodesia, on 27th March, 1948, at the age of 55.
He received his professional training at the Heriot Watt College and University of Edinburgh from 1911 to 1911, gaining the College Diploma in Mining.
In November, 1914, he was appointed surveyor and mine assistant to Caprington and Auchlochan Coal Co., at Kilmarnock, and eighteen months later joined the Anglo-Persion Oil Co., Ltd., beginning as junior geologist and rising to the position of senior geologist. During his fifteen years’ service with this company he was engaged in oilfield development and mapping in Persia, Borneo, New Guinea, the U.S.A., and Venezuela, and was in charge of geological surveys in Albania and Colombia, and in 1916 spent five months prospecting for wolfram in Lower Burma.
From 1931 to 1933 he studied mineralogy at the University of Freiberg-in-Breisgau, Germany, where he obtained a, Ph.D. degree, and in May, 1934, took up the position of geologist to Gold Coast Selection Trust, Ltd. He worked on the Gold Coast and was acting manager of Nangodi mine and acting general manager of Gold Coast Selection Trust, Ltd., in West Africa, for some months. He left in November, 1938, to join West African Gold Corporation, Ltd., and mode geological examinations of all the mines administered by the Corporation in West Africa. At the time of his death his services had been lent to the Rhodesian Corporation, Ltd.
Dr. Chapman Brown was elected to Membership of the Institution in 1914.
Vol. 58, Trans I.M.M. 1948-49, p. 584
