Edwin James Vallentine died at Auckland, New Zealand, on 24th February, 1951, at the age of 74.
From 1894 to 1896 Mr. Vallentine was mining at Belingwe, Southern Rhodesia, and at Nigel Gold Mining Co., Ltd., and he then took a mining engineering course at the Glasgow and West of Scotland Technical Institute. Returning to South Africa in 1898, he spent some months with Langlaagte Estate Gold Mining Co., Ltd., and then served in the Boer War from 1899 to 1902. From 1902 to 1903 he was surveyor for Sheba Gold Mining Co., Barberton, afterwards working in the consulting engineers’ department of Messrs. Lewis & Marks, Johannesburg, for two and a half years, during which period he -obtained the Mine Manager’s and Mine Surveyor’s Certificates of the Transvaal.
Towards the end of 1906 he went to Siberia as assistant to Dr. F.H. Hatch to report on gold mines for Messrs. John Taylor & Sons, and also paid a visit to the U.S.A. He was appointed Inspector of Mines in the Malay States in 1908, and in December 1909 took up the management of the Rahman Tin Co., Ltd., Upper Perak, and became resident magistrate for that district.
After the 1914-1918 war Mr. Vallentine was appointed to a Government Board investigating the tin mining position in Malaya, and from 1922 until 1927 he resided in New Zealand, interesting himself in various mining projects there. Returning to Malaya in 1927, he set up in practice as consulting engineer in Kuala Lumpur with Mr. L. Vaughan, M.I.M.M., under the style L. Vaughan & Co., and later with Mr. W.T. Dunne, the name of the firm being changed in 1946 to Vallentine & Dunne. Among the mining companies for which the firm acted as consulting engineers were Renong Tin Dredging Co., Ltd., Malayan Hydraulic Tin Mines, Ltd., Hong Fatt Mine, and various Chinese-owned tin mines in Malaya. Mr. Vallentine finally retired from Malaya in 1949.
Among his published works were ‘Mining tables and The weights and measures of international commerce’, written with Dr. F.H. Hatch and published in 1907, and a history of the Rahman mine. His ‘Vallentine scale’ is still used in Malaya for determining tin samples. He contributed two papers to the Transactions of the Institution: ‘The carat weight’ (vol. 17, 1907-8), and ‘Some notes on Malayan, bucket dredges’ (vol. 39, 1929-30).
He was elected to Associate Membership of the Institution in 1906 and was transferred to Membership in 1910.
Vol. 61, Trans IMM 1951-52, p.308
