Arthur George Charleton died in France on July 7th, 1926, in his 68th year.
He entered the Royal School of Mines in 1876 and obtained his Associateship in 1879, during the intervening period visiting a number of copper and other metal mines in Wales and Flintshire. On completing his course, he went to Germany and entered the Freiberg Bergakademie, Saxony, and in the succeeding two years he was occupied in practical surveying, mining, and metallurgical work in Germany.
Returning to England for a short period during which he was engaged in reporting on the treatment of arsenical ores, he proceeded to Canada as assistant manager of the Canadian Consolidated gold mines at Deloro, Ontario, afterwards moving to New York and eventually to Nevada, where he was assistant manager of a group of gold and silver mines.
Again returning to England in 1883, he went to India in the following year to report on the Wynaad and Mysore goldfields. In 1885 he went to Australia the general manager of the Disraeli Gold Mining Co., Ltd., Rishton, North Queensland, and three years later he occupied the same position at the New Queen mines, Charters Towers.
In 1890 he was back in England representing Messrs. B.J. and William Frecheville during their absence abroad, and reporting for them on mines and works in Bohemia. During the period 1891-93 he was engaged in inspecting and developing concessions in the Pyrenees for the New Pierrefitte Co., Ltd., and designing dressing works.
In 1895 he started practice in London as a consulting engineer with Mr. F.W. Grey, and in the course of that partnership he inspected mines and designed plants m various countries, including Western Australia, New Caledonia, Spain, and Brazil. This association ceased in 1902, and in 1904 Mr. Arthur Dickinson joined Mr. Charleton under the style of Charleton, Dickinson & Co. The firm acted as consulting engineers and managers to a number of mining companies in addition to carrying on general consulting work.
Mr. Charleton virtually retired from the practice of his profession shortly after the conclusion of the Great War, during the latter part of which he had been attached to the Headquarters London Ministry of Munitions (Finance Department).
He was a voluminous writer, and in addition to producing several books, notably ‘Choice of Coarse and Fine Crushing Machinery and Processes of Ore Treatment’ (1894), ‘Report Book for Mining Engineers’ (1895), ‘Tin Mining, Dressing and Smelting’ (1884), ‘General Principles of Successful Mine Management’ (1900) and ‘Gold Mining and Milling in Western Australia’ (1908), he wrote a large number of articles for the technical Press. He contributed no fewer than five papers, and a Presidential Address, to the Transactions of the Institution, besides taking part in the discussions on other papers.
He was Chairman of Sectional Committee ‘E’, dealing with Mine Accounts and Cost Sheets, of the I.M.M. Standardization Committee in 1910. Mr. Carleton was elected a Member of the Institution in 1892, he was a Member of Council for many years, and occupied the Presidential Chair in 1902-3.
Vol. 36, Trans I.M.M. 1926-27, pp. 529-30
