William Bullock died on 2nd March, 1958, at the age of 82.
He was born and educated in Norfolk, and from 1891 to 1896 was apprenticed to the Ceres ironworks at Kingston-on-Thames, Surrey, spending the final year; as a draughtsman. He then began a long association with Fraser and Ltd., first as tracer and draughtsman in the mill department, Erith.
Mr. Bullock spent four years from 1900 to 1904 as engineer with Messrs. Lake and Currie, consulting engineers, gaining experience on his tours in Angouleme, West Africa, Western Siberia, and California, and in the designing of the Broomassie plant, West Africa, and the Nile Valley plant, Egypt. About this time he took a course in surveying and studied geology and mineralogy at the Birkbeck Institute in London.
Returning to the drawing office at Fraser and Chalmers in 1904, he was in charge of designing on mill work in the mining section until 1910, when he was transferred to the London sales department for four years. Mr. Bullock was then appointed chief of the mining and metallurgical section at Erith, and in the following eight years erected a gold crushing and cyanide plant in the south of France and visited installations in many parts of the U.S.A.
He worked for a year in 1918-19 with the British Sintering Co. in London, and from 1919 to 1925 was general manager of Sandycroft, Ltd., near Chester.
Mr. Bullock returned to Fraser and Chalmers Engineering Works at Erith in 1925, again taking charge of the mining and metallurgical section, and during the next twenty years in this position he inspected a number of low-temperature carbonizing plants in Great Britain, Italy, Germany, Belgium and France, and sintering plants in Norway and Sweden. He designed gold dredges for French West Africa and the Belgian Congo, copper concentrating and smelting plant for Russia and India, and gold plant for West Africa, Spain, Peru, the Belgian Congo and Yugoslavia. He also visited Rhodesia.
He retired from active work in 1945, but was retained as a consultant for his section at Erith until 1953. He lived near Hastings in Sussex, and for some time before his death had suffered ill health.
Mr. Bullock was elected an Associate Member of the Institution in 1913.
Vol. 68, Trans I.M.M. 1958-59, pp. 224-25
