William Russell died on 1st October, 1956, at his home in Reigate, Surrey, at the age of 88.
Mr. Russell was born in Scotland and from 1884 to 1888 was first a student and later an assistant in the City Analyst’s laboratory, Glasgow, at the same time studying in the evenings at Glasgow Technical College. He worked at Mossend Steel Works for seven years, as chemist and as under-foreman in the melting shop, and lectured on metallurgy and iron and steel manufacture. He was appointed chemist and assayer to Cassel Gold Extraction Co., Ltd., Glasgow, in 1895.
Just over a year later Mr. Russell took up the appointment of chemist and metallurgist in charge of the testing works of Gold and Silver Extraction Co. of America, and from 1898 to 1899 was manager of the Brodie Gold Reduction Co., Cripple Creek, Colorado. He was at Denver for three years on his appointment as chief chemist and metallurgist of the Gold and Silver Extraction Co. of America, from 1899 to 1902, and left to work as a consulting engineer, treating tailings and opening up small mines. From 1907 to 1910 Mr. Russell was mill manager of Golden Reward, at Deadwood, South Dakota, and, after a visit to South Africa, returned to the United Kingdom to become the first managing director of the Dorr Company, Ltd., in London. He was later made Chairman of the Dorr-Oliver Co., Ltd., and at the time of his death was an advisory director.
Mr. Russell was elected a Member of the Institution in 1903, and served as a Member of Council from 1935 to 1939 and in the office of Vice-President from 1939 to 1941. He was also a member of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and of the Society of Chemical Industry, of which he was a member of Council and chairman of the Chemical Engineering Group.
Vol. 66, Trans I.M.M., 1956-57, p.632
