William Robert Coleridge Beadon died on 31st December, 1952, at the age of 76.
He received his technical training at the Royal School of Mines from 1893 to 1897, obtaining the Associateship of the School in both mining and metallurgy, and immediately took up a post as assistant engineer and surveyor with the Montana Gold Mining Co. of Marysville. He joined the staff of Messrs. John Taylor & Sons in 1898 and went to India as assistant reduction officer at Mysore gold mine, three years later transferring to Ooregum gold mine as chief reduction officer, where he remained for six years. In 1907 he was appointed manager of the South India Manganese Co., opening and operating a manganese property in the Ballary District of Madras, and was subsequently manager, in each case for a year, of South India Coal Mining Syndicate and Eastern Exploration Co. Mr. Beadon was in private practice in India and Burma from 1910 to 1911, and in June, 1911, was appointed superintending and managing engineer to the three concessions operating in Tavoy (Tavoy Congessions, Ltd., Hermyingyi Mining Co., Ltd., and Tenasserim Concessions, Ltd).
In 1914 Mr. Beadon returned to India for Messrs. John Taylor & Sons, and until 1919 was engaged on special reports concerning the production of wolfram in Lower Burma. From 1919 to 1928 he was again in private practice in India and Burma, and in 1929 left for North America where he carried out examinations and diamond drilling in Ontario, British Columbia and California. He visited various parts of the world in his professional capacity, and in 1938-1940 developed his own gold mine in California. Mr. Beadon was agent for an import business on the Gold Coast in 1942, and since 1944 had lived in Cape Province, South Africa.
He was elected to Associate Membership of the Institution in 1911 and transferred to Membership in 1916.
Vol. 62, Trans I.M.M. 1952-53, p. 502
