Ernest George Houghton died at Vancouver on November 20th, 1944, at the age of 65, after a lingering illness.
He started his mining career in 1902 in Western Australia, and in 1905 joined the staff of the Waihi Mining Co., Ltd., New Zealand, where he remained for eighteen months before transferring for a year to the Waihi Grand Junction Mining Co. as assistant to the underground manager. From 1906 to 1908 he studied at the Waihi School of Mines, and spent another year in New Zealand at the Maratoto mine and cyanide plant, leaving for California at the end of 1909 on his appointment to the Crown Lead Mining and Transport Co., where he was in charge of the mine and mill for just over a year.
In February, 1911, Mr. Houghton took up a position in British Columbia with the Merrill Metallurgical Co., where he was employed on the construction and operation of an all-sliming plant for the Motherlode Sheep Creek Mining Co. In June, 1913, he entered the service of the Jewel-Denero Mines, Ltd., B.C., for two years being in charge of the mill and assisting the manager. When the manager left in October, 1915, Mr. Houghton took over the property and operated it on lease, but in January, 1917, he enlisted in the Canadian Engineers, serving in France for two years. On demobilization he obtained an appointment with the Kassa Mining Co., Ltd., as manager of a tin mining property in Nigeria, but returned to British Columbia in 1921, where he pursued his profession as mining engineer for a few years. Later he retired, and acquired and managed an interior decorating business in Vancouver for some 15 or 20 years before his death.
Mr. Houghton was elected an Associate of the Institution in 1921.
Vol. 55, Trans IMM 1945-46, p.569
