Andrew King died at his home in Johannesburg on 10th July, 1958, at the age of 71.
Mr. King was born in Scotland. He worked as assistant chemist at Glengarneck Iron and Steel Co., in Ayrshire, in 1904, and in September of that year entered the Royal Technical College (then the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical College), Glasgow, graduating three years later with the Associateship of the College in metallurgy. He remained there for a further two years, lecturing in the metallurgical department.
Mr. King went to South Africa in 1909 to take up the post of cyanide and battery worker at Knights Deep mine, Germiston, Transvaal. He left in 1912 on his appointment as reduction works manager at Sub Nigel mine, Transvaal. After fourteen years’ service on the gold mines of the New Consolidated Gold Fields group he was transferred to head office in Johannesburg in 1923 and held the position of consulting metallurgist until his retirement in 1947.
Mr. King was closely associated with the South African Institute of Mining and Metallurgy for many years. He became a member in 1909, served on the Council, and was President of the Institute (then the Chemical, Metallurgical and Mining Society of South Africa) for the year 1931-32. He received their gold medal for metallurgy in 1935 for his paper entitled ‘Flotation of Witwatersrand ore products (laboratory results)’ and was made a Life Member in 1938. Mr. King wrote a number of contributions for the Journal of the South African Institute and after his retirement compiled and edited the book Gold metallurgy of the Witwatersrand for the Transvaal Chamber of Mines in 1949. He was co-author, with A. Clemes and H.E. Cross, of a paper published in the Transactions of the Institution (vol.56, 1946-47) entitled ‘The treatment of gold ore containing pyrrhotite at the Sub Nigel, Ltd’.
Mr. King was elected an Associate Member of the Institution in 1912.
Vol. 68, Trans IMM 1958-59, pp.283-4
