Wilbert George McBride died suddenly at his summer residence on Dorval Island, Lake St. Louis, Ontario, on August 22nd, 1943, at the age of 64.
He was born in Inglewood, Ontario, and entered McGill University in 1898, obtaining his B.Sc. degree in mining engineering in 1902. For the following five years he worked as surveyor and engineer and later chief engineer, to the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Co. at Bisbee, Arizona, and in 1907 was appointed superintendent of the Sierra de Cobre Mines at Cananea, Sonora, Mexico. He returned to Arizona in 1909 as general superintendent of the Great Western Copper Co. at Courtland, a post which he held until 1916. In that year he became assistant manager of the Morenci branch of Phelps Dodge Corporation, and in 1917 was appointed general manager of the Old Dominion Co. at Globe, Arizona, where he spent the next ten years.
In 1927, when John Bonsall Porter decided to retire from his Professorship at McGill, he recommended the University authorities to appoint McBride — one of his old students — as his successor. The post was offered and accepted, and a few years later, when the departments of mining engineering and metallurgical engineering were amalgamated, Professor McBride was elected president of the new department. For six years he represented the Faculty of Engineering on the Senate of the University. He was a Member of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and was President of the Institute in 1941-42.
Professor McBride was elected a Member of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy in 1928, and was Member of Council for Canada from 1938 until his death.
Vol. 53, Trans IMM 1943-4, pp.434-5
