Gilbert McPherson died on 28th February, 1957, at the age of 58.
He was born in Scotland and educated at Kilmarnock Academy and Allan Glen’s Engineering College, Glasgow, and on leaving in 1915 worked for a few months as gang foreman at a hydraulic forging shop in Glasgow. He took a civilian pilot’s flying certificate at Hendon and then joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1916 as Flying Cadet, was commissioned in 1917, and was awarded the Military Cross in France in 1918. He was demobilized the following year with the rank of Captain.
In September, 1919, Mr. McPherson entered the Camborne School of Mines where he obtained a first-class pass in City and Guilds examination in ‘Occurrence, Mining and Dressing of Ores’ in 1920 and gained a first-class Diploma of the School in 1921. He worked for a few months in Scotland, for part of the time on steam plant design and erection, and then in Devonshire, and in 1923 was appointed mine and mill manager to Wheal Jewell and Mary Tavy Mines, Ltd., later becoming manager of the company, producing tin and arsenic. On cessation of operation in 1925 he was made assistant manager of the Tresavean tin mines, Cornwall, and in the following year did consulting work at a zinc smelter in Scotland.
Mr. McPherson joined Selection Trust, Ltd., in 1926 as ‘office engineer’ in London, and remained with the group for the rest of his life, with the exception of the years of the 1939-45 war when he was lent to the Ministry of Supply Deputy Director of Production, Royal Filling Factories.
During his early association with Selection Trust he carried out mine examinations in Yugoslavia and in the U.S.A., and in addition, from 1927 to 1931, worked in a technical capacity for Rhodesian Congo Border Concessions, Ltd. (now Rhokana Corporation). He was appointed to the Board of International Selection Trust, Ltd., in 1931, and in 1932 was made a director of Trepca Mines, Ltd, London, and of Zletove Mines, Ltd., London. He was also on the board of Granite Investment Trust, Ltd. He went to New Zealand in 1934, to Roumania in 1935, and to Canada and the U.S.A. in 1938. Mr. McPherson was appointed consulting engineer to Selection Trust in 1945, and held that position until his death.
He was the author of two papers published in the Transactions of the Institution: ‘The preparation of true perspective views from mine plans by simple methods either graphical or numerical’ (vol. 47, 1937-38), and ‘Possible use of shaped explosive charges in mining’ (vol. 57, 1947-48).
Mr. McPherson was admitted to Studentship of the Institution in 1921, and transferred to Associate Membership in 1924 and to Membership in 1932.
Vol. 67, Trans IMM 1957-58, p.436
[Letter to C.S.M. May-June 1921, pp.216-17]
