William Kitto died suddenly at his home in Penzance, Cornwall, on 7th January, 1951, at the age of 69.
The son of the late Benedict Kitto, M.I.M.M., assayer, analyst and consulting chemist, he obtained his technical training at his father’s laboratories in St. Swithin’s Lane, London, from 1898 to 1902. During 1903 he attended the Penzance Mining School, and in the following two years was surveyor and assayer at several Cornish mines. In 1906 he returned as assistant to his father, and in 1910 became manager of the assay office and metallurgical laboratory. On his father’s death in 1928, William Kitto became senior partner, with his brother Mr. Benedict Trembath Kitto, of the firm of Benedict Kitto and Sons, of 336 City Road, London, E.C., where he remained until his retirement at the end of 1948.
During the 1914-1918 war his firm were official analysts to the Ministry of Munitions for the purchase of all tungsten and molybdenum ores, and during the second world war they shared with two other firms the appointment of official analysts to the Ministry of Supply.
Mr. Kitto was elected a Student of the Institution in 1904, and was transferred to Associateship in 1907 and to Membership in 1916. He was the author of a paper on ‘The assay of antimonial gold ores’, published in the Transaction: (vol. 16).
Vol. 60, Trans IMM 1950-51, p.324
