John Martin Baron Gundry died at Newport, Monmouthshire, on 25th March, 1962, at the age of 59.
Mr. Gundry was born in Cornwall and educated at the Imperial Service College (now Haileybury), Windsor. From 1931 to 1935 he trained as an engineer with Messrs. Dorman Long and Co., Ltd., London, and in June, 1935, entered the Camborne School of Metalliferous Mining, taking the full course and obtaining the A.C.S.M. in 1937.
He went to South Africa in October, 1937, to take up employment with Brakpan Mines, Ltd., Transvaal, where he worked for three years. He transferred to Van Dyk Consolidated Mines, Ltd., at the end of 1940, and a year later joined the Johannesburg Consolidated Investment Co., Ltd., group. He worked underground at Government Gold Mining Areas, Ltd., for five years, rising to the positions of shift boss, mine overseer, and sectional study officer, and from 1946 worked for a year in a similar capacity for New State Areas, Ltd., Springs, before being promoted chief study officer. He continued in this position with Randfontein Estates Gold Mining Co., Ltd., between 1948 and 1954, with one year on transfer at Rustenburg Platinum Mines, Ltd., as underground manager. Mr. Gundry obtained the Mine Managers Certificate and the Mine Overseers Certificate of the Union of South Africa.
He left the Witwatersrand in 1955 to join Sierra Leone Selection Trust, Ltd., Yengema, as assistant manager, but returned to England the following year and took up the position of divisional method study engineer for the National Coal Board, South Western Division, at Hengoed, Glamorganshire. He held this post at the time of his death.
Mr. Gundry joined the Institution in 1937 as a Student, and was elected to Associate Membership in 1948 and to full Membership in 1956.
Vol. 72 Trans IMM 1962-63, pp.678-9
