Samuel Joseph Dene died after a very short illness at a London hospital on October 24th, 1944, at the age of 64.
He had twelve months’ underground work in 1898 at the Foxdale lead-mines, Isle of Man, before studying assaying at King’s College, London, for a few months land receiving his mining training at the Royal School of Mines.
In 1901 he obtained an appointment as a millman at the Mysore gold mines, where he remained for three years, and from 1904 to 1906 he was prospecting and opening up old workings in the Egyptian Sudan in the employ, of Messrs. John Taylor & Sons. He accompanied Mr. S. Gifford in 1908 as assistant on a short mission to Italy, and then became a mine agent in Spain to the Peña del Hierro Co. In 1910 he returned to India to the Mysore Gold Mining Co., Ltd., working in their mill, cyanide and assay departments for a period of 13 years.
He travelled to Canada in 1924 on sampling and reporting work for Mitchelson Partners, Ltd., and the following two years he spent as assistant resident engineer and later as resident engineer to Sumatra Mining and Exploration, Ltd. He remained in the Netherlands East Indies in 1928 in charge of prospecting and exploring for gold for Balimbing Mijnbouw Maatschaapij. Mr. Dene then obtained the appointment of mill and cyanide manager to Tanganyika Central Gold Mining, Ltd., which he held from 1930 to 1931, subsequently taking up in 1932 the position of manager of Aurum, Ltd., Sudan. For over two years, from May, 1935, to September, 1937, he held the post of general manager to Ukaranga Syndicate, Ltd. and East African Selection Syndicate, Ltd., Tanganyika, and in 1939 he went to Colombia as manager of the Carmen Valley gold mine. He returned to England in 1940, and was employed by Messrs. John Taylor & Sons at the time of his death.
Mr. Dene was elected a Student of the Institution in 1902 and was transferred to Associateship in 1911.
Vol. 55, Trans IMM 1944-5, pp.263-4
