Horace George Nichols died suddenly on July 30th, 1945, in British Columbia. He had for some time suffered the partial paralysis of one side.
He was a student at the Royal School of Mines from 1886 to 1899, and graduated with an Associateship in Metallurgy. He became assayer to the New Morgan gold mine in North Wales in 1890, then worked in South Africa from 1891 to 1894 as millman to Sheba Gold Mining Co., Ltd., with minor engagements in Swaziland.
He first went to British Columbia in 1897 on his appointment as assistant superintendent to Hall Mines, Ltd., Nelson, and in 1899 became mill foreman to Ymir Gold Mines, Ltd. From 1901 to 1902 he held the position of assistant superintendent and acting superintendent to Standard Consolidated Mining Co., at Bodie, California. He then joined Republican M. & D. Co., California, as superintendent, and from 1904 was for two years manager of Aramecina Gold and Silver Mining Co., Ltd., and Transito Gold Mine, Ltd., in Honduras and London.
Mr. Nichols returned to British Columbia in 1906 and took over the managership of Ymir gold mines until they were closed down in 1910, when he left for South Africa, later becoming resident engineer for Anglo-Siberian Co., Ltd., and Russo-Asiatic Corporation in Russia and Siberia. In 1913 he was partner in the firm Bainbridge, Seymour & Co., mine managers, of London, but during the 1914-1918 war served with the B.E.F. in France as captain in the Royal Engineers. On demobilization in 1919 he went to Mexico as general mines superintendent to Mazapil Copper Co., Ltd., and in 1921 settled in British Columbia, first in practice as consulting engineer in Vancouver, and in 1925 as government resident mining engineer in Central District.
For the last twenty-two years of his life Mr. Nichols had been associate editor of Canadian Mining Journal, and two of his many previous technical writings were published by the Institution — ‘A method of settling slimes as applied to their separation from solution in cyanide treatment’ and ‘The treatment of tin ores in Cornwall: a description of the Geevor mine’ (Trans., vols. 17, 1907-8, and 23, 1913-14, respectively).
He was elected an Associate of the Institution in 1903 and transferred to Membership in 1907. He had also been a member of council and vice-president of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.
Vol. 56, Trans IMM 1946-7, p.622
