John Isidore Hoffmann died in Yorkshire on September 15th, 1915, aged 58 years.
He was born at Manchester, and educated at the Manchester Grammar School, Owen’s College, and in Vienna. In 1881 he was apprenticed for three years to a firm of engineers in Manchester, and spent the two following years in the service of another Manchester engineering firm.
In 1887 he went to South America, and was engaged for the greater part of his four years’ stay there in railway engineering work in Buenos Aires and Uruguay. He also carried out a hydrographic survey of the River Uruguay.
In 1892 he went to South Africa, and for a time practised as a civil engineer, but later in the same year he obtained an appointment with the Randfontein Estate and Gold Mining Co., as underground surveyor and civil engineer, which he filled until the end of 1893. For the two years following, he was general manager of the North Randfontein Gold Mining Co., and from 1896-1897 was general manager of the Balmoral Main Reef Gold Mining Co. He then went to Mexico for three years and was engaged as general manager of the Consolidated Gold Fields of Mexico, Ltd., and later as managing director of the London Scottish Exploration Syndicate, Ltd. He returned to South Africa in 1901, and among other engagements he filled was that of manager of the United South Africa Association, Ltd.
He came to England in 1911, and for some time was in private practice in London. He contributed a paper on ‘Recent Practice in Diamond Drilling and Borehole Surveying’ to the Transactions of the Institution in 1912.
Mr. Hoffmann was elected a Member of the Institution in 1901.
Vol. 25, Trans IMM 1915-16, pp.398-9
