Guillaume Daniel Delprat died in Melbourne, Australia, on March 15th, 1937, at the age of 80.
He was born in Delft, Holland, but became a British subject by naturalization. After receiving his technical education in Amsterdam, he was for four years in charge of the cementation department in the Spanish mines of the Tharsis Sulphur and Copper Co. He then joined the staff of the Bede Metal and Chemical Co., Ltd., of Newcastle, and was for four years mining engineer in charge of the S. Telmo, Joya and Carpio mines. For the following five years he was general manager of all of the company’s mines, and in 1891 was appointed consulting mining engineer to the company.
During a tour of the mining fields of the world he became acquainted with the Broken Hill Proprietary Co., and in 1898 joined that concern as assistant general manager. In the following year he became general manager, and assumed his duties at the time when, the oxidized ore at Broken Hill being exhausted, the treatment of sulphide ore was being attempted. After experimentation, a froth flotation process was developed and successfully applied, not without much litigation.
In 1911 Mr. Delprat investigated the possibility of utilizing as a source of iron and steel the iron deposits at Iron Knob, South Australia, from which the company was obtaining flux for lead smelting at Port Pirie. Works were erected near Newcastle, New South Wales, and the production of iron and steel began in 1915, at a time when supplies from abroad were greatly reduced. In 1918 he was awarded the O.B.E. in recognition of these services. He resigned his post as general manager to the Broken Hill Proprietary Co. in 1921, but was retained as consulting engineer.
Mr. Delprat was an Honorary Member of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers and of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy.
He was elected a Member of the Institution in 1892, the year of its foundation.
Vol. 47, Trans IMM 1937-8, pp.540-1
