Walter Hull Aldridge died in New York on 16th August, 1959, at the age of 91. He was born in New York State and educated at Brooklyn Polytechnical Institute. He graduated from Columbia University in 1887.
For the following five years he worked as assayer, chemist and metallurgist or the Colorado Smelting Co. at Pueblo, Colorado, and then became assistant manager, and shortly afterwards manager, of the United Smelting and Refining Co. at East Helena and Great Falls.
At the age of 30, in 1897, Mr. Aldridge was appointed manager of Canadian Smelting works at Trail, B.C., and subsequently became chief of the mining and metallurgical department of the Canadian Pacific Railway for 13 years. He also held the positions of managing director of Consolidated Mining and Smelting Co. of Canada, Ltd., from 1904 to 1911.
Mr. Aldridge moved to Los Angeles and then to New York to join Gunn-Thompson interests, and took charge of various mining properties, holding the office of managing director of Inspiration Copper Co., president of Magma Copper Co. and vice-president of the Mines Co. of America. He was appointed vice-president of Texas Gulf Sulphur Co., Inc., in 1916 and was president from 1918 to 1951, when he became chairman of the board.
A trustee of Columbia University for many years, Mr. Aldridge received the honorary degree of Doctor of Science in 1929, and was awarded the Conspicuous Alumni Service Medal in 1933, the Egleston Medal in 1939 and the Class of 1889 Prize Medal in 1953. He was also awarded the William Saunders Medal of the A.I.M.E. in 1933, and the John Fritz Medal of the American Engineering Societies for 1950.
Mr. Aldridge was elected a Member of the Institution in 1909, and had been a director of the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum Engineers, of which he was elected an honorary member in 1944. He was a charter member of the Mining and Metallurgical Society of America, a member of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy and member of the Institution of Mining Engineers and of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers.
Vol. 69, Trans IMM 1959-60, pp.571-572
