Selwyn Gwillym Blaylock died at the age of 66 in the Trail-Tadanac Hospital, Canada, on November 19th, 1945, after a long illness.
He was born in Paspebiac, Quebec, and was educated at Bishop’s College School, Lennoxville, and McGill University, graduating in 1899 with the B.Sc. degree in mining and metallurgy.
He obtained an appointment in British Columbia as assayer and junior chemist at the Trail plant of the Canadian Smelting Works, and became chief chemist at the plant in 1901 and metallurgist in 1905. Upon the acquisition of the Trail smelter in 1906 by the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada, Ltd., Mr. Blaylock began his long association with that company, and was appointed chief superintendent at the Hall mines smelter in Nelson in 1907.
He was transferred to the St. Eugene mine, Moyie, in 1908, and the following year, in company with Mr. R. H. Stewart, made an examination of the Sullivan mine which was subsequently acquired by the Consolidated Mining and Smelting Company of Canada, and he was appointed superintendent of that mine also until 1911. He was recalled to Trail as assistant general manager, and during the 1914-1918 war Mr. Blaylock’s great efforts successfully increased the production of zinc at the Trail and Tadanac plants. He became general manager of the Company in 1919, director in 1922, vice-president in 1927, managing director in 1938, and president and managing director a year later. He was appointed chairman and president in 1943, but owing to ill health resigned the presidency of the company while remaining chairman of the Board. He was a director of the Bank of Montreal and several mining and metallurgical companies, and had been a director of the Canadian Pacific Railway Co.
His outstanding ability was recognized everywhere. In 1924 he was awarded the McCharles Prize of the University of Toronto, and in 1928 he received the James Douglas Medal of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, of which he was elected an Honorary Member in 1944. In 1929 and in 1930 he had conferred on him the honorary degree of LL.D., first by McGill University and then by the University of Alberta. He was a member of the Board of Governors of the former. He was awarded the Platinum Modal of the International Nickel Co. of Canada, Ltd., by the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, of which he had been a member since 1907 and on whose Council he had served for two periods. He was President of that Institute during the session 1934-35, and was designated an Honorary Member in February, 1945.
Mr. Blaylock was elected a Member of the Institution in 1925 and was awarded the Gold Medal of the Institution in 1940 in recognition of his outstanding achievements in advancing the science of metallurgy in the Dominion of Canada. With others he contributed a paper on ‘A Short History of the Discovery and Development of the Sullivan Mine’ to the Empire Mining and Metallurgical Congress held at Wembley in 1924 (Transactions I.M.M., vol. 34, Part 2, 1924-25).
Vol. 56, Trans I.M.M. 1946-7, pp. 608-9
