Algernon Gordon Doyle died at his London home on 18th May, 1955, at the age of 63.
He was educated at the City of London School and received his technical training from 1909 to 1912 at the Camborne School of Metalliferous Mining, gaining a first-class Diploma of the School.
On leaving Camborne he was employed by Consolidated Main Reef Gold Mines and Estates Co., Ltd., for eighteen months in Johannesburg.
He served during the 1914-1918 war in a Royal Engineers field company; he was awarded the Military Cross and was twice mentioned in despatches. On demobilization with the rank of captain in 1919, Mr. Doyle took a short refresher course in geology, petrology and mineralogy at the Royal School of Mines and in 1920 left for East Africa.
Mr. Doyle was from that time associated almost exclusively with the investigation and development of minerals in Tanganyika Territory. He founded with a few friends the East Africa Engineering and Trading Co., Ltd., of which Mr. Doyle was the local chairman. Among its activities were the investigation and working of Lupa gold alluvials, various mica mines in the Kungwe, Kedete, Morogoro and Mihese areas, the Ufipa and Rukwa valley coal areas, Brandt and Kedete copper occurrences, the Geita gold field (which he and others discovered in 1933), and the kaolin deposit near Dar-es-Salaam.
The East Africa Mining and Development Co., Ltd., was later founded to take over the earlier company’s mining interests, Mr. Doyle being a founder-director. He was also on the board of directors of Geita Gold Mining Co., Ltd., and Mica Mining (Tanganyika), Ltd. During 1939-1945 he again served with the Royal Engineers, this time in East Africa. He was a member of the East African Industrial Research Board during the war and subsequently.
Mr. Doyle was elected to Associate Membership of the Institution in 1933.
Vol. 65, Trans IMM 1955-56, p.112
See: Skinner, 1947, p.144 re Gita G.M.C.
Skinner, 1954, p.177-8 re Gita G.M.C.
