Harry Cyril Boydell died at Chester, Nova Scotia, on April 16th, 1935, at the age of 62.
Though of English birth, being born at Sulham, Berkshire, he obtained his early technical training in New Zealand, and in 1894 graduated with the Associateship of the Otago School of Mines and the degree of B.Sc. of New Zealand University. He subsequently received further training at the Imperial College of Science & Technology, London, at the Transvaal University College, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology under Waldemar Lindgren.
For several years after graduating he was employed on mines in New Zealand and Australia, working in various capacities from surveyor and assayer to mine manager. In 1911 he went to South Africa and worked on the Rand until 1916, for two years of this period being mine captain at the Government Gold Mining Areas.
He then spent a year on the Gold Coast at Prestea Block A, returning to England in 1917 to examine mines in Great Britain. In 1919, he started to practise as a mining geologist and engineer on his own account, and in that capacity did mining, geological and examination work principally in the United States, Canada, and Greece. He went to reside permanently in Canada in 1928.
He contributed five papers to the Transactions of the Institution: ‘The Role of Colloidal Solutions in the Formation of Mineral Deposits’ (Trans., vol. xxxiv (i); ‘Economic Geology and the Mining Industry’ (Trans., vol. xxxv); ‘The Solubility of Cassiterite’ (Trans., vol. xxxvii); ‘Operative Causes in Ore Deposition’ (Trans., vol. xxxvii); and ‘Temperature of Formation of an Epi-thermal Ore Deposit’ (Trans., vol. xli).
Dr. Boydell was elected an Associate of the Institution in 1915, and was transferred to Membership in 1927.
Vol. 45, Trans I.M.M. 1935-36, pp. 509
