Garnett Slemen Skuthorp died in tragic circumstances at a Royal Ordnance Factory in England on March 27th, 1944, at the age of 58, having in the darkness fallen into a water tank where he was found drowned.
He was born in Australia and graduated in mining and metallurgy at Sydney University in 1906. After five years of general practical mining experience he was appointed mill manager and metallurgist at the Youanmi Gold Mines, Western Australia, in 1911. He remained in this post until 1914, when he was appointed metallurgist and assistant manager to the Corinthian North Gold Mines, Western Australia, and a year later held a similar appointment with the Bullfinch Proprietary Gold Mines.
He came to England during the Great War and from 1916 to 1919 he was engaged as a chemist in a Government explosives factory at Gretna. In 1919 he returned to Australia as metallurgist and acting general manager to the Bullfinch Proprietary Gold Mines, and in 1921 he was metallurgist and surveyor to the Edna May Central Gold Mine.
He was mill manager at the Pahang Consolidated Tin Mines, F.M.S., from 1921 until 1923, when he returned to Western Australia as general manager of the Big Bell Gold Mine. He held a similar position at the Menzies Consolidated Gold Mines from 1924 to 1926, at the Surprise Lead Mines (also in Western Australia) in 1927, and at tin mines in Victoria in the following year. For some months he supervised diamond drilling in Western Australia, and in 1929 and 1930 travelled to British Guiana and Ecuador to examine mineral deposits. From 1931 to 1933 he held the position of underground manager and superintendent at the Ariston gold mine on the Gold Coast, and then became general manager of the Atta gold mine.
In 1936 he returned to Western Australia as manager of a gold mine, and from 1938 until his return to England in 1940 he was manager of the Nanwa Gold Mines, Ltd., on the Gold Coast. He was engaged on war work under the Ministry of Supply when he met with his fatal accident.
Mr. Skuthorp was elected an Associate of the Institution in 1935.
Vol. 54, Trans I.M.M., 1944-45, pp.275-6
