Percy Burke Michael Furnell died at Aden from ptomaine [food] poisoning on July 16th, 1923, at the age of 39.
On leaving Cheltenham College in 1903, he went respectively through Henderson’s School of Mines at Truro, the Cornwall County Council Technical Schools, and the Royal College of Science, Dublin, in the course of which he obtained a good practical experience of almost every mine in Cornwall by acting as assistant to Messrs Henderson’s surveyor.
In 1907 he went to Mexico, to carry out assaying, milling, and surveying at the San Francisco Del Oro mines, Parral, Chihuahua, and in the following year he was appointed assayer and surveyor, and eventually assistant manager, to the Corona Queen mines, Corona, New Mexico. He also did some reporting for the New Mexico Exploration Syndicate.
In 1910 he became assistant to Mr. H.A. Judd, who was engaged in surveying mining properties in Northern Nigeria. A year or two later, he went to India, and was for some years engaged on the Anantapur Gold Field, Morriston, S. India.
Mr. Furnell was elected an Associate of the Institution in 1911.
Vol.34, Trans IMM 1924-25, pp.566-7
