Cyril Frazier died in hospital at Jos, Northern Nigeria, on October 22nd, 1945, at the age of 49.
After a year apprenticed to the Borough Surveyor of St. Ives, he joined up and served in the ranks with the infantry from 1914 to 1919, seeing service in India and Mesopotamia, where he was wounded in 1917.
On demobilization in 1919 he began the diploma course at the Camborne School of Mines and obtained a first-class Associateship of the School in July, 1922. He immediately obtained a position as mining assistant in the employment of Messrs. Mason & Barry, Ltd., at Sao Domingos mine, Portugal, where he remained until June, 1920. After a short refresher course in practical surveying, Mr. Frazier took up an appointment in December, 1926, as mining assistant to Nigeria Base Metals Corporation, Ltd., where for two years he was prospecting and working tin alluvials at Lower Kassa. In 1929 he was employed as assistant engineer examining gold and platinum alluvials for Santiago Properties, Ltd., in Ecuador, and then spent a year prospecting in Angola with Sir Robert Williams & Co.
He returned to Britain in 1931 and for two years was engaged as a surveyor on the grid scheme in the employment of Callender’s Cable and Construction Co., Ltd., but left in 1933 on his appointment by the Sierra Leone Development Co., Ltd., as engineer-in-charge of alluvial gold areas and of the Marampa iron ore works. After four years in Sierra Loonehe worked from March to October, 1938, as section engineer for Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons on a Government tunnelling contract in South Wales, and then, in December, 1938, joined the Bisichi Tin Co. (Nigeria), Ltd., as surveyor and prospector at Jos, later becoming mining engineer and then acting manager.
In 1942 he took up a position with Minerals Research Syndicate, Ltd., at Jos, and was in their employment at the time of his death. He had been a member of the Nigerian Volunteer Defence Corps.
Mr. Frazier was elected a Student of the Institution in 1921 and was transferred to Associateship in 1928.
Vol. 55, Trans IMM 1945-46, p.567
[Article in CSM Magazine, June 1922, p.143]
