Edward Herbert Clifford, President of the Institution for the Session 1941-42, died at his home at Chobham, Surrey, on October 11th, 1943, at the age of 67.
He was educated at St. Paul’s School and entered the Royal School of Mines in 1892, obtaining his Associateship in mining and metallurgy in 1895. After a further year’s study at the Bergakademie, Freiberg, he went to South Africa and obtained practical experience in various mines in the Transvaal.
In 1899 he was chief surveyor at Langlaagte Deep, and in 1903 was appointed head surveyor to Rand Mines, Ltd. In 1906 he became assistant general manager of East Rand Proprietary Mines, and from 1907 to 1911 was assistant to the consulting engineer to H. Eckstein & Co. In 1912 he was appointed manager of Modderfontein B Gold Mines, and in 1914 became consulting engineer to the Central Mining-Rand Mines Group.
Early in the 1914-18 war, however, he came to England to act as chief technical adviser to the mineral resources department of the Ministry of Munitions under Sir Lionel Phillips. At the end of the war Mr. Clifford returned to his former post in Johannesburg, where he remained until 1926, when he came to London as consulting engineer to the British South Africa Company, a position which he held until his death.
In the present war Mr. Clifford gave valuable services to the N on-ferrous Mineral Development Control of the Ministry of Supply.
His published work includes a paper entitled ‘Scheme for Working the City Deep Mine at a Depth of 7,000 ft.’ (Transactions I.M.M., Vol. xxx). He was a member of the Governing Body of the Imperial College of Science and Technology, and keenly interested in the well-being of mining students.
Mr. Clifford was elected a Member of the Institution in 1918, and served as a Member of Council from 1926 until his death. His term of office as President was one of great difficulty. Four days before his induction a heavy air raid had destroyed his London office (as well as that of his predecessor, Mr. Thomas Pryor), and the office of the Institution was inaccessible owing to a nearby delayed action bomb. The loss of his books and records must have thrown a great strain on him, but Mr. Clifford, nevertheless, spared no pains in his work for the Institution, which will always be indebted to him.
Vol. 53, Trans I.M.M. 1943-4, pp. 426-7
