Robert Lee died at Dunedin, New Zealand, on September 9th, 1986, at the age of 51.
He was educated at the Otago Boys’ High School and the Waitaki High School, matriculating in the University of New Zealand in 1903. From 1904 to 1907 he attended the Otago University School of Mines and graduated as Associate at the end of his course.
On leaving the University he was engaged as engineer’s assistant by the New Zealand Government Railways, and resigned in 1910 to take up a position as engineer to the New Zealand Coal & Oil Co., Ltd., at their collieries at Kaitangata. He was appointed general manager and engineer in 1912, and managing director in 1920. When the collieries were sold in 1927 to the Kaitangata Coal Co., Ltd., he was appointed general manager of that company.
He resigned this post in 1930 to start practice as a consulting mining engineer, and conducted this practice for the rest of his life. He was the New Zealand representative of Messrs. F.W. Payne & Son, and acted as consulting engineer to New Zealand Mines, Ltd., Okarito Five Mile Beach Gold Dredging Co., Ltd., and Clutha River Gold Dredging, Ltd. He was a director of several public companies, including the New Zealand Express Co., and several mining concerns, and in 1932 he visited Victoria and reported to the Government on the State coal fields.
Mr. Lee acted as Chairman of the Otago Coal Control Committee, appointed by the New Zealand Government to control the production and sale of coal during the years of the War, and in 1924 was President of the New Zealand Coal Mine Owners’ Association. He had also an intimate connexion with the scheelite mining industry of New Zealand for 25 years, and acted on behalf of the industry, when in London in 1919, in arranging details of the settlement of terms in winding up the contracts between the British Government and the New Zealand scheelite producers.
He was elected a Student of the Institution in 1906, and was transferred to Membership in 1916.
Vol. 46, Trans IMM 1936-7, pp.826-7
