George Watt Thomson died on April 23rd, 1946, at Christchurch, New Zealand, at the age of 66, after a long illness.
He was born in New Zealand and attended the Otago School of Mines from 1897 to 1900, obtaining the Diploma of Associateship in both mining and metallurgy. For the following three years he was employed by Consolidated Gold Fields of New Zealand, first as foreman of their cyanide plant at the Wealth of Nations mine, Rufton, and later working on a small cyanide plant for Bendigo Tailings Syndicate and as assistant chlorinator.
In the early part of 1903 he acted as assistant to Mr. J.H. Curle in his examination of a property in Bohemia, and in April, 1903, was appointed assistant mining engineer to Duff Development Co., Ltd., at Kelantan. From 1906 to 1909 Mr. Thomson worked for Minerals Separation, Ltd., as metallurgist, in London, Mexico and Canada. He remained in Canada for the next four years in the capacity first of metallurgist to the Temiskaming Mining Co., Ltd., in charge of the designing, erection and operation of a 40-stamp mill, then, from 1910 to 1911, as general manager of Pearl Lake Gold Mines, Ltd., Porcupine, transferring in June, 1912, to the general managership of Porcupine Lake Gold Mines, Ltd.
Mr. Thomson held the position of chief mining engineer to Pahang Consolidated Co., Ltd., from 1913 to 1925, leaving Malaya for Japan to become underground manager to Taio Gold Mining Co., and in 1928 took up the appointment of general manager to Toyo Mines, Ltd. After two years with this company he returned to New Zealand and carried on a consulting engineering practice for four years, but in 1935 went to Fiji as general manager of Whitehall Exploration, Ltd. He left in 1937 for the Gold Coast Where he was general mines manager to Ashanti Goldfields Corporation. He retired in 1943 and was living in Nelson, New Zealand, when he was taken ill.
Mr. Thomson was elected a Student of the Institution in 1902, and was transferred to Associateship in 1906 and to Membership in 1913.
Vol. 56, Trans IMM 1946-47, pp.625-6
