Hervic Nugent Grahame Cobbe died on 8th July, 1953, at the age of 91.
For three years, from 1877 to 1879, he was a pupil at a private engineering school in Derby, and in 1880 became an articled pupil to the resident engineer of the London North Western Railway for a further period of three years. From 1883 to 1885 he was assistant to the Railway’s resident engineers, working in the Birmingham-Leamington area. He resigned from the company and engaged on private metallurgical practice, travelling in the United States and Canada, and inspecting Welsh and German manganese and silver-lead mines.
He settled in Australia in 1892, and for the next two years was engaged on prospecting and mining on his own account in New South Wales and Victoria, subsequently prospecting in Western Australia until 1897 when he took up the position of assistant to the general manager of Big Blow Gold Mines at Coolgardie. During 1898 he held the post of mill manager at Hannan’s Brown Hill Gold Mines, Ltd., Kalgoorlie, and in the following year was appointed foreman of their new mill. Later in 1899 Mr. Cobbe became manager of King Solomon’s Gold Mines, Ltd., and from 1899 to 1901 was manager of Burbanks Grand Junction, Ltd., Coolgardie. He was mill superintendent of Kalgurlie Gold Mines, Ltd., from 1902 to 1905 and in 1906 was appointed a special temporary commissioner by the Minister of Mines for Western Australia to report on the State Public Battery system.
Mr. Cobbe was subsequently in private practice as consulting mining engineer. He visited Broken Hill and other mining centres and during 1907 held the position of mill manager of North White Feather gold mines. In 1909 and 1911 he travelled in Norway and Sweden, South Africa, Southern Rhodesia and the Transvaal, and in 1912 went to the Guianas. During 1913 he spent six months investigating bauxite areas in British Guiana and in 1914 negotiated for a lease of the areas on behalf of an American company.
During the first world war he was appointed sub-director of a department of the Ministry of Munitions in 1915, leaving in 1918 to resume his consulting practice, with headquarters in London. In 1923 he was appointed British delegate to the World Power Conference, and, in the following year the government of British Guiana made him their organizing secretary at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley.
Mr. Cobbe maintained his office in Victoria Street, London, until his death, and during the 1939-45 war served as a part-time Air Raid Warden in London. He was elected a Member of the Institution in 1909.
Vol. 63, Trans I.M.M. 1953-54, p. 43
