Henry Forbes Julian was a passenger on board the ill-fated S.S. Titanic, which foundered on April 15th, 1912, as the result of a collision with an iceberg, and his name was returned amongst those of the large proportion of the passengers and crew who were “missing.”
He was educated in Cork and Bolton and subsequently at Owens College, Manchester, his scientific studies being continued under Sir Henry Roscoe. Adopting the profession of which he was such a distinguished member, from 1886 to 1893 he practised as a consulting mining and metallurgical engineer at Barberton, Johannesburg and Kimberley, in which capacity he superintended the opening from the surface of several well-known mines and the erection and operation of a number of crushing mills and reduction works.
In 1893 he joined, the Deutsche Gold and Silver Scheide Anstalt, of Frankfurt-am-Main, as chief technical adviser on mining and metallurgical matters, and conducted extensive metallurgical researches in that connection, which resulted in the introduction of far-reaching improvements in the recovery of the precious metals from ores.
For some years previous to his death he acted as consulting engineer to the Butters Patent Vacuum Filter Co., and it was on the occasion of a trip to San Francisco, where he was going to take up special work on behalf of his firm, that he chanced to be a passenger on the mammoth liner whose fate staggered humanity.
Mr. Julian was a prolific contributor to several learned societies, and he was the joint author, with Mr. E. Smart, of a standard work on “Cyaniding Gold and Silver Ores.” In the course of his professional career he had been a great traveller, visiting Mexico, the United States, Canada and the West Indies many times – he had actually crossed the Atlantic Ocean 13 times before his last and fatal trip – while in South Africa he had made extensive trips, and he was one of the first white men to visit the Zambesi Falls. Their Majesties the King and Queen, and the Queen Mother, each wrote touching letters of sympathy to Mrs. Julian on learning the sad fate of her husband.
Mr. Julian was elected a Member of the Institution in 1908.
Vol. 21, Trans IMM 1911-12, pp.725-6
