John Duncan died on 1st March, 1953, at the age of 79.
He was educated in Wakefield and underwent a three-year training course at the Yorkshire College, Leeds, from 1891, graduating in 1894 with the B.Sc. degree of Victoria University, Manchester.
The following year he was apprenticed to Mr. Robert Middleton of Sheepscar Foundry, Leeds, and in 1897, after a brief period as draughtsman in London, went to New Zealand. He worked for nine months as journeyman erecter at the Belfast Freezing Works, and in 1898 joined Messrs. Cutten Bros., dredger consulting engineers of Dunedin, New Zealand, as chief draughtsman and inspecting engineer.
From 1901 to 1903 Mr. Duncan worked on the lnchdale and Greymouth Lagoons gold dredges, and until 1905 was engaged on private work, prospecting and reporting on dredging properties in Argentina. He then returned to England to the London office of Messrs. Cutten Bros., and in 1907 transferred to the post of draughtsman and engineer on alluvial mining machinery for the Wilfley Co., Ltd., during 1908 visiting various tin mines in Malaya. Between 1910 and 1913 he was engaged in motor transport work, but in 1913 rejoined the Wilfley Co., Ltd., as alluvial engineer, and from 1914 to 1915 worked for the Russo-Asiatic Corporation as draughtsman. He held the post of engineer, and later construction engineer for the Union Minière du Haut Katanga, Belgian Congo, from 1915 to 1919, and in 1920 was prospecting in the Sudan for the Abyssinian Development Syndicate. He was engaged in similar work in Portugal in 1921 and in Macedonia from 1922 to 1924.
Mr. Duncan rejoined Messrs. Cutten Bros. in 1925, being made a partner in 1926, and remaining with the firm until he became sole partner after the 1939-1945 war, retiring only about a year before his death. He designed and built a large tin dredge for the Bangrin Tin Dredging Co., Ltd., and spent two years in Siam in
1934-35 for the Siamese Tin Syndicate, subsequently acting as consulting engineer to the Minnehaha Development Co. in British Guiana, since taken over by British Guiana Consolidated Goldfields, Ltd. He was interested in a dredging property in Greece and maintained his connexions in a consulting capacity with Siamese Tin Syndicate and Bangrin Tin Dredging until his retirement.
Mr. Duncan was elected to Associate Membership of the Institution in 1920 and was transferred to Membership in 1937.
Vol. 62, Trans IMM 1952-53, pp.503-4
