Frederick Thomas Byrde died in Nigeria during the summer of 1912, at the age of 41.
He was educated at Bedford Grammar School and afterwards at the Royal School of Mines, where he graduated as A.R.S.M. in 1898.
He proceeded to South Africa, where, from 1894 to 1896, he was assayer and surveyor to the Mazoe Development Co., Rhodesia, and from 1896 to 1900 was engaged in reporting, prospecting, and managing mines for various companies in the same territory. In 1901 he left South for West Africa, where he was engaged until 1908 in gold mining. In 1904 he was for some time inspecting various mines in Hungary, and in 1905 he returned to West Africa, where he first held an appointment under the Ashanti Goldfields Corporation, and afterwards, in 1906 and 1907, was in charge of a mineral survey expedition in Liberia.
From 1908 to 1910 he acted as engineer to a French company in French Guinea, where he was engaged in testing alluvial properties, and in 1911 he was again in the Gold Coast Colony examining and reporting on mines. Early in 1912 he went to Nigeria, where he subsequently died in the summer of the same year.
Mr. Byrde was elected an Associate of the Institution in 1895.
Vol. 22, Trans I.M.M. 1912-13, pp. 716-17
