Harry Samuel Denny died on August 11th, 1938, as a result of a motor accident near Toronto. He was 66 years of age.
He was born at Bathurst, N.S.W., Australia, and he received his early education at a high school in Sydney, before going to the Ballarat School of Mines. He was at the, school from 1887-90 and graduated in the latter year.
His professional career began in London in 1891 when he took charge of a metal works, but in the same year he went to the Continent, as assistant manager on a mine in Austro-Hungary. During his stay on the Continent he undertook private consulting work in Portugal and other countries.
In 1894 he left Europe for Africa and spent a few months in Natal before beginning consulting work in Klerksdorp, Transvaal. In 1897 he took up similar work on the Rand in collaboration with his brother, George. He was connected with the Rand mining industry for several years and after a brief period of private practice became assistant consulting engineer to the General Mining & Finance Corporation, and subsequently was appointed general manager of the Albu Group of mines, controlled by the Corporation. He and his brother were associated in partnership on the Rand for several years and they collaborated in all technical matters. It was during this period that he was responsible for the introduction of many innovations in the methods of treating banket ore, including tube-mills, filter-pressing, and the circulation of cyanide solutions through mills.
In 1906 and 1907 he spent a few months in England, and examined and reported on properties in the U.S.A. During the following few years his consulting work took him to Australia, South Africa, Mexico, and the U.S.A.
During the Great War, he joined the staff of the Ministry of Munitions and was responsible for the supervision of several high-explosive factories, and in 1918 was awarded the C.B.E. in recognition of this work. After the Armistice he was appointed head of a technical commission to assist Gen. Plumer in the occupied German territory, and before long he resumed his consulting work.
In 1927 he went to Canada and in the course of his stay was able to give service to the Government of Ontario, under whose auspices he published two pamphlets on gold and its place in the world of economics. His writings on the economic aspect of metals included articles on money and the world crisis, bimetallism, silver and the gold standard, and the lack of metallic money. He contributed to the technical journals and scientific transactions of several countries and some of his most notable work was the papers published in South Africa formulating his ideas on new metallurgical schemes for the extraction of gold from banket ores.
Mr. Denny was a Member of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, the South African Institute of Engineers, and the Institute of Petroleum Technologists. He was elected a Member of the Institution in 1912, and was a Member of the Council from 1928 to 1927.
Vol. 48, Trans IMM 1938-39, pp.829-30
