Ralph Harold Bowen Gwynn died at the Miller General Hospital, Greenwich, on April 21st, 1941, at the age of 60.
For six years from 1898, he obtained general training as a civil engineer and surveyor in Bristol, and in 1905 he went to Canada and spent a year in the Yukon Territory on work connected with hydraulic sluicing. During two following years he was engaged with a steam-coal company in South Wales, and then spent some months gold-dredging in West Africa.
Returning to England he was occupied with surveying and arbitration work for two years, after which he went back to Canada to undertake hydrographical work at Hudson Bay for the Dominion Government. In 1913 he went to South Africa, where he was engaged respectively on a gold mine in Johannesburg, in the harbour department at Durban, and in the City Engineer’s Department at Cape Town.
On the outbreak of war he obtained a commission in the Royal Garrison Artillery. On demobilization, he spent two years in the Republic of Colombia, and returned to England in 1921, where he made Bristol his headquarters for a number of years.
Mr. Gwynn was admitted to Studentship of the Institution in 1913, and was elected an Associate in 1915.
Vol. 51 Trans IMM 1941-2, pp.334-5