Robert Philip Brodie died on 21st February, 1954, at the age of 61.
From September, 1909, until the outbreak of war in 1914 Mr. Brodie was serving an apprenticeship in mechanical engineering with Messrs. Day, Summers and Co., engineers and shipbuilders of Southampton. He enlisted as a trooper in the 11th Hussars, and was commissioned to the Hampshire Regiment in April, 1915, joining the 10th Bn. in Macedonia in November of that year. In September, 1917, he was transferred to the Indian Army, and retired in August, 1921, with the rank of captain.
He immediately entered the Camborne School of Metalliferous Mining, Cornwall, and obtained a first class Diploma in July 1924. Mr. Brodie then joined the mining staff of the Niger Co., Ltd., in Nigeria, and eighteen months later was appointed assistant engineer to Ex-Lands Nigeria, Ltd. In 1927 he joined Anglo-Nigerian Tin Mines, Ltd., and in July, 1928, rejoined Ex-Lands Nigeria, Ltd., as area manager, remaining with that company until the slump of 1931. From November, 1933, to January, 1935, he was manager of North Ashanti Mining Co., Ltd., and Ashanti-Adowsena (Banket) Goldfields, Ltd., and during 1935 prospected and reported on gold properties on the Gold Coast.
From January, 1936, to November, 1937, Mr. Brodie was manager of Oceana Consolidated Co., Ltd. He returned to England and in 1939 took an appointment as production officer, Ministry of Aircraft Production, later becoming steel licensing officer. He returned to Nigeria in 1942 as area manager with Gold and Base Metal Mines of Nigeria, Ltd., for two years, subsequently holding a similar position with Minerals Research Syndicate, Ltd. He was again employed in England from 1946 to 1947 as prospecting officer to the Ministry of Fuel and Power at Leeds, and during the following year was in Sierra Leone as general manager to the Yemen Co., Ltd. He rejoined the Ministry of Fuel and Power on his return to England in 1948 in the capacity of prospecting officer at Nottingham, but left for Burma in 1949 to take over the management of Anglo-Burma Tin Co., Ltd. In 1951 he went to Tanganyika as senior mining engineer to the Colonial Development Corporation at their Murongo tin mines. He returned to England towards the end of 1953.
Mr. Brodie was elected a Student of the Institution in 1924 and was transferred to Associate Membership in 1933.
Vol. 64, Trans I.M.M. 1954-55, pp. 193-4
