William Birch Blyth died in Southern Rhodesia on September 7th, 1943, at the age of 63.
An Australian by birth, he entered the Ballarat School of Mines in 1899 and started his mining career at the Mount Lyell copper mine, Tasmania, in 1902.
After six months at Mount Lyell he was employed for a year as assayer at the Gulf Creek copper mines, New South Wales, and in 1904 worked in the cyanide plant of the Great Fingall mine, Western Australia. In the following year he was appointed assayer to the Cosmopolitan Proprietary gold mine, and in 1906 returned to the
Great Fingall mine in the same capacity, and remained for two years. He subsequently held positions as metallurgist to the Vivien, Wiluna, Gwalia Consolidated and the Lancefield Gold Mines, and from 1910 to 1914 he was chief metallurgist for Messrs. Bewick, Moreing & Co. in Western Australia.
In 1915 he went to Rhodesia as consulting metallurgist to the Goldfields Rhodesian Development Co., Ltd., and in 1916 set up in practice with the late Mr. F.A. Marriot as consulting mining engineers and metallurgists in Rhodesia. On the death of his partner in 1919, Mr. Blyth continued the business until 1921, when he became, associated Mr. K. Byron-Moore under the style of Blyth and Moore, Ltd., mining engineers and metallurgists and mine operators.
Mr. Blyth, who was the author of a paper on ‘The treatment of slimes on the small gold mines of Southern Rhodesia’ (Transactions, Vol. 46), was admitted to Associateship of the Institution in 1907 and was transferred to Membership in 1916; he resigned in 1921, but was re-admitted to Membership in 1935.
Vol. 54, Trans I.M.M. 1944-5, p. 259
