Arthur Broughton Broughton-Edge died in London on 8th October, 1953, after suffering for many years from a severe form of arthritis. He was 58 years of age.
His scientific training started in 1912, when he began to study for the London B.Sc. in general science, and he passed the Intermediate examination in 1914.
On the outbreak of war, however, he was commissioned to the Royal Artillery and served abroad from 1915 to 1917 and at home until the end of the war.
On demobilization he entered the Royal School of Mines, and in 1921 obtained a first-class A.R.S.M. in mining geology. He then studied for a year at the Royal College of Science, gaining in 1922 a first-class A.R.C.S. in pure geology and an honours B.Sc. in geology of London University.
For three months in 1921 Mr. Broughton-Edge assisted the late Professor Gilbert Cullis in an examination of mineral deposits in Cyprus for the Colonial Office and he was joint author with Professor Cullis of the Report on the cupriferous deposits of Cyprus published in 1923.
From 1922 until 1928 he was engaged in geological field work in Portugal, Spain, Cyprus, and the Rhodesias, mainly on behalf of the Rio Tinto Co., Ltd., Messrs. Mason and Barry, Ltd., Esperanza Copper and Sulphur Co., Ltd., Seville Sulphur and Copper Co., Ltd., and Tygon Mining and Finance Corporation, Ltd. It was during this period that he developed his interest in the scientific application of geophysics to mineral prospecting and became the leading British exponent of these methods.
In 1928 he was appointed Director of the Imperial Geophysical Experimental Survey, formed under the joint auspices of the Empire Marketing Board and the Government of the Commonwealth of Australia for the purpose of testing in known mineral areas of Australia the various geophysical prospecting methods. The report on the Survey’s work, The principles and practice of geophysical prospecting, edited by Messrs. Broughton-Edge and T.H. Laby, was published by the Cambridge University Press in 1931.
During the course of his work with the Survey in Australia, Mr. Broughton-Edge made inspections in Malaya for the F.M.S. Government and in Cyprus for the Rio Tinto Company, and on the conclusion of the Survey he resumed his full consulting practice. Until 1940, when ill-health forced him to abandon active field work, he visited many parts of Europe, the Near East and India. Among other published work he contributed a paper on ‘Electrical prospecting’ to the Transactions of the Institution (vol. 38, 1928-29).
Mr. Broughton-Edge was elected a Student of the Institution in 1921, and was transferred to Associate Membership in 1924 and to Membership in 1929. He served as a Member of Council from 1937 to 1945.
He was a Fellow of the Geological and Chemical Societies and a Member of the Mineralogical Society, and was awarded the Diploma of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, London, in 1929. Dr. S.H. Shaw writes: Broughton-Edge’s early retirement from geological and geophysical work was a serious loss to the mining and geological world but to himself it was a tragedy of which few perhaps were aware. Within a short period, and at an age when many have years before them for further achievement and to enjoy the fruits of their labours, he was forced to abandon his active and successful career for the regime of an invalid and was fated to spend his remaining years alone through the untimely death of his wife in 1947 . It was a situation he bore with a philosophical courage that showed his understanding of the changes and chances of life and that made his friends hope that should they themselves ever have to meet such trials they would be able to do so with at least a part of his cheerfulness.
Broughton-Edge was a gifted man of a somewhat shy and reserved manner that hid a kindly, humourous, practical, meticulous character. He always used to say that the reason he took up independent consulting work was that he could never have tolerated what he called the ‘tyranny of the mine whistle, and wished to be free to make his own time-table. The real reason, however, was that his wide range of scientific interest and knowledge would not allow him to be restricted to the relative narrowness of a routine post. While keenly interested in the possibilities of geophysical prospecting, and indefatigable in the design of new instruments and the trial of new field methods, his attitude to it was both scientific and practical and he did much to raise the status of the geophysicist in the eyes of the mining profession. His wide interests stood him in good stead when illness forced him to give up active professional work and he turned to mineralogy and petrofabric analysis. Here too his practical scientific outlook was to the fore and he devised some new and ingenious methods with the petrological microscope for the quick measurement of certain optical properties of minerals in thin sections. Of these he has fortunately left an account that it is hoped will be published in due course.
Broughton-Edge’s death is a serious loss to the many branches of science and technology that he adorned; and to those who, like the writer, were privileged to be among his friends and who knew his sterling human worth, a double loss.
Vol. 63, Trans I.M.M. 1953-54, pp. 267-8
