Vernon Forster Stanley Low died in Sydney, Australia, during July, 1956, at the age of 85.
Mr. Low received his training at Melbourne University and graduated B.C.E. and M.M.E. From 1894 to 1898 he worked for Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Co., Ltd., Tasmania, gaining practical underground experience and rising to the position of shift boss and in 1896 being made first assistant to the manager of the mining department. During 1898 Mr. Low gained further experience, as timber-man underground and later as mill-hand at the concentrator of Broken Hill Proprietary Co., Ltd., New South Wales. In the following year he was appointed general manager of Girilambone Copper Mining Co., Ltd., New South Wales.
Mr. Low became general manager of Broken Hill Proprietary Block Ten Co. in 1902, holding this position until 1911, and during this period visited the Kalgoorlie goldfields, Malaya, Indo-China, China, Japan and the Philippine Islands, and mining fields and industrial plants in Great Britain, Europe and the U.S.A.
In 1912 Mr. Low did consulting work in London and carried out investigations on Cornish tin mines, continuing these in 1913 after work connected with mines in Moscow and Siberia. He returned to Australia in 1914 for the reorganization of the Lloyd Copper Co., Ltd., Burraga, and of the Corinthian North Gold Mines, Western Australia.
In the following year he visited the Kimberley diamond mines, South Africa, and worked as mine captain of Glencairn Main Reef, Germiston. He obtained the South African Mine Manager’s Certificate in 1916 and was mine captain at Crown Mines, Ltd., Johannesburg, for a short time before returning to London to enlist in H.M. Forces. He was not accepted, however, and from 1916 to 1918 worked in the Aerial Inspection Department.
After the war Mr. Low spent two years inspecting mining and rubber properties in Kelantan and the Malay States, and in 1921 completed construction of the Lake Copper Proprietary Co., Ltd., flotation plant and reopened their mine in Sweden. He subsequently worked on reopening an oil-shale mine in Estonia, and during 1924 was joint manager of African Manganese Co., Ltd., Gold Coast. From 1925 to 1927 Mr. Low inspected gold properties in Nicaragua, manganese deposits in Greece and concessions of the Panama Corporation in Central America. He was appointed consulting engineer to the Panama Corporation in 1927 and held this position until 1932, subsequently travelling widely in connexion with many new enterprises. After his retirement from professional work Mr. Low continued to travel extensively and then, in 1950, settled permanently in New South Wales.
During his long career Mr. Low contributed several articles to the technical press.
He was elected a Member of the Institution in 1913, and was also a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers.
Vol. 66, Trans IMM 1956-57, p.596
