Alfred John George Swinney died at his residence, 117, Richmond Park Road, Bournemouth, on July 23rd, 1918, aged 60 years. He had been suffering from heart trouble for more than a year, and the last few months of his life were rendered painful by tedious and protracted illness.
He obtained his professional training from 1873 to 1878, as an indentured student to a well-known mining engineer, under whom he gained practical experience in general mining engineering and surveying in the coal and ironstone mines of Durham. He also studied geology and the principles of metalliferous mining at the Durham College of Science.
In 1883 he went to Australia and coal mines in New South Wales, and in reporting and mining work on tin and gold properties in the same province. He then returned to England, and for two years acted as assistant manager of a colliery and ironworks in the County of Durham. The following year was occupied by a reporting trip to Borneo; and during the three subsequent years, from 1886 to 1889, he was engaged in managing some ochre and fuller’s earth mines in the West of England. A further trip to the East Indies saw him engaged in the Malay Peninsula, where he remained for three years managing mines and doing inspection work for the Pahang Corporation, Ltd.
In 1892 he went to Canada and remained there for six years, during which time he carried out inspecting and reporting expeditions on gold properties in British Columbia and Ontario; managed the Deloro gold mines, Ontario, for three years; worked in the nickel mines at Sudbury, Ontario, and was engaged in gold dredging on the Fraser river.
In 1898 he returned to the Malay Peninsula and made inspections of tin mines in various districts, in addition to carrying on exploration and prospecting work in Siam and the Malay States. His next trip, in 1902, was to West Africa, where he managed some gold mines for Messrs. Sulman and Picard.
For many years Mr. Swinney fixed his residence at Sidcup, in Kent, whither he always returned after his numerous professional trips to various parts of the world. His engagements during the later years of his life included a journey to India in 1907, where he held an appointment at Linsugar in the Deccan; and a further visit to the Straits Settlements in, 1910. In 1915 he moved to Bournemouth, and the last three years of his life were spent in this South Coast health resort.
Mr. Swinney was elected a member of the Institution in 1902.
Vol. 28, Trans I.M.M., 1918-19, p.?
