Robert Cockburn Syson sailed from Amsterdam on January 23rd, 1910, on the S.S. Prinz Willem II, for Paramaribo, Dutch Guiana, which is supposed to have foundered at sea.
From 1873 to 1878 he was an articled pupil to a firm of civil and mining engineers in Glasgow, and from 1878 to 1880 he studied at Glasgow University. For three years subsequently he was assistant manager and surveyor to a mine in South India, and from 1883 to 1887 was in practice as a consulting mining engineer in Glasgow. In 1887 he was appointed engineer under the Madras Government, and in 1901 became general manager of the Scottish Wassau Syndicate in West Africa, and in 1904 acted in the same capacity to a gold mining company in Queensland.
After two years of professional practice in Glasgow, he returned to Bundaberg, Queensland, and back again to Glasgow, whence he was on his way to South America at the date of his death.
Mr. Syson was elected an Associate of the Institution in 1906.
Vol. 20, Trans I.M.M., 1910-11, p.524
