Douglas Dunbar Staveley died suddenly at Erith, Kent, on 8th January, 1954, at the age of 73.
He was educated at the Stationers Company’s School, Hornsey, London, and attended the engineering school of the Polytechnic, Regent Street, for a year before becoming an apprentice at Messrs. Lewis and Sons engineering works, Aberdeen, in July, 1897, leaving in December, 1900, to go to South Africa. On returning to England Mr. Staveley spent another year at the Polytechnic and then entered the Royal School of Mines in 1903, obtaining the A.R.S.M. in mining in 1906.
He remained at the School studying geology until December of that year when he went to Borneo to become assistant to the manager of Sintoeroe gold mine, Sambas, Dutch Borneo. In 1908 Mr. Staveley was injured in a mine explosion but the following year returned to the mine as acting manager and early in 1910 was promoted manager.
On his return to England in 1911 he took a course of electrical engineering at the Central Technical College, London. He went to Canada in 1913 and was farming in Saskatchewan until May, 1929, when he joined Hudson Bay Mining and Smelting Co., Ltd., at their Flin Flon mine, remaining there until January, 1935, when, for reasons of health, he returned to England.
During the war Mr. Staveley was employed at Yeovil by Westlands Aircraft, and later went to work as designer and draughtsman in die mining section of Messrs. Fraser and Chalmers engineering Works at Erith, where he worked until the day before his death.
Mr. Staveley was elected a Student of the Institution in 1906 and transferred to Associate Membership in 1912. He was also an Associate Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.
Vol. 63, Trans I.M.M., 1953-54, pp.539-540
