Robert Alastair Lucien Black died on 21 June. 1967. He was 46 years of age.
Professor Black was educated at the Royal School of Mines, London. He studied there during the period 1938-40 and graduated in mining with first-class honours in 1946. From 1940 to 1945 he was on active service with the Fleet Air Arm, and was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his part in naval air operations off Malta.
The Years 1946-55 were spent in various capacities on the Witwatersrand: from 1946 to 1951 Professor Black held a number of posts with City Deep, Ltd.; he then became technical assistant to the Consulting Engineers, Central Mining and Investment Corporation, Ltd.; and subsequently, underground manager, Consolidated Main Reef Mines and Estates Ltd.
In July 1955, he was appointed Chamber of Mines Professor of Mining Engineering at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, holding this position until 1963, when he was appointed Professor of Mining and Head of the Department of Mining and Mineral Technology at the Royal School of Mines, London.
In addition to his academic work in South Africa and the United Kingdom, Professor Black was engaged as a consultant by various mining companies and other organizations.
Professor Black was elected to Student Membership of the Institution in 1940; he was transferred to Associate Membership in 1949, and to Membership in 1957. He was elected a Member of Council in 1963 and served as a member and as chairman of several Institution committees and, in addition, was the Institution’s representative on the Committee of the British Geotechnical Society. He had also been very closely associated with the work of the Council of Engineering institutions since the formation of that body, and was the Institution’s representative on the CEI Education and Training Committee, and also chairman of the CEI Part I Examinations Board.
Professor Black was the author of a large number of technical papers and, besides playing a prominent part in the reorganization of the Institution’s Transactions, was Chairman of the Mining industry Editorial Board.
R.H. MacWilliam writes: The mining industry can ill afford the loss of a man like Alastair Black. Alastair was a man of many parts and on the threshold of achieving greatness in the industry.
After graduating from the Royal School of Mines he joined the South African mining Industry, where his qualities were quickly recognized. His clear thinking was evidenced by the excellence of the reports he prepared for his company and the way in which he marshalled his facts. As a result, he was a great success as a mine official and at an early age he was transferred to the Group Head Office. There it was soon apparent that his interests leaned towards research, administration and the academic world, so that when he was offered a professorship of mining at Witwatersrand
University he accepted with alacrity. There he was faced with the problem of the dwindling numbers of mining engineering students and made it his task to increase both the numbers and the quality. He was strongly of the view that the higher the academic standard required of the students, the better the quality of student that he would attract. There is no doubt that at
Witwatersrand University he succeeded in changing the character of the course and, indeed, the type of student who enrolled for it.
His interest in attracting the right type of student led him to try to find ways of filling the gap between school-leaving and the start of university life and he leapt at the opportunity of becoming Dean of one of the University’s residences; he was a great success, and many students will be grateful for the help and advice that they got from Alastair. He also at one time persuaded the Chamber of Mines to institute a pre-University course with the object of weeding out unsuitable candidates and also of making the transition for the others easier. For various reasons this scheme did not succeed, but it was certainly an experiment worth trying.
On the research side he took the greatest interest in rock mechanics and heat. He developed both of these subjects considerably and was instrumental in inducing people from industry who were knowledgeable in these subjects to lecture to his students. He did much to widen the general outlook of his students and to make his mining courses as universal as possible.
When he left Witwatersrand University for the Royal School of Mines he brought with him many of these ideas and was busy developing them at the Imperial College. In particular, he continued to believe that the best students could only be attracted by demanding the highest academic standards, though some people may have thought he carried it a little too far. The success of this thinking will only be seen in the years to come.
Apart altogether from his mining activities he had a wide number of interests particularly in the field of art. He was very interested in painting; and in the domestic arts of cooking, furnishing and interior decorating. He carried his teaching into his own home and his house was full of all kinds of labour-saving devices which made most ideal homes look as though they had been designed by novices.
It is indeed tragic to think that the industry has lost a man of such ability at so early an age. The mining industry all over the World will be the poorer for his passing. Our sympathy goes out to his wife and family.
Vol. 76, Trans I.M.M. 1967, p. 69
