Ernest Philip Hargraves died on 2nd October, 1956, at the age of 79.
He was born in New Zealand, and from 1896 to 1900 worked in the assay and bullion department of the Waihi Gold Mining Co., Ltd. During the following two years he was their battery superintendent, also in charge of cyaniding, having obtained the New Zealand Government battery superintendent s certificate and passed the New Zealand School of Mines examination in assaying. He spent the next five years in Western Australia, first as assayer to South Kalgurli mine in 1902, then as metallurgist and assayer to the New Standard Exploration Corporation’s Paddington mines and to Kalgoorlie Amalgamated, Ltd. He was appointed foreman of the cyanide plant of Golden Links Eclipse mine in 1903, then from 1904 to 1907 was metallurgist in charge of works at Peak Hill Goldfields, Ltd. He left in 1908 to take up the position of metallurgist to Cobar Gold Mines, Ltd., New South Wales.
From 1909 to 1916 Mr. Hargraves was in practice in Melbourne as consulting mining and metallurgical engineer on his own account and as a member of the firm of Hargraves and Daggar.
He joined the Australian Imperial Forces in June, 1916, and was commissioned in the Australian Engineers. He was invalided out of the army in July, 1918.
He spent the next fifteen years of his career in Malaya and Singapore. He was consulting mining engineer to Mr. J.B. David and was managing director of Malayan Mining and General Agency, Ltd., from 1919 to 1933, then had charge of the mining department of Sime, Darby and Co., Ltd., Singapore, for a year. During that period he was concerned with Renong Tin Dredging Co., Kuala Lumpur Tin Dredging Co., Puket Tin Dredging, Kuchai Tin Dredging Co., Penawat Tin Dredging-Co., Malaya Consolidated Tin Dredging Co. and Changkat Tin Dredging. When the last four companies came under the management of Anglo-Oriental (Malaya), Ltd., in 1934, Mr. Hargraves joined their staff, but retired in 1936. He did not, however, relinquish all his consulting engineering work until the war year of 1941, when he went to live in Australia. He returned to Malaya in 1945-46 and was a visitor to England in 1949-50.
Mr. Hargraves was elected to Associate Membership of the Institution in 1903 and transferred to full Membership in 1919.
Vol. 67, Trans IMM 1957-58, pp.30-31
