Edward Niclas Kruger died recently in Nottingham at the age of 68.
He entered the Royal School of Mines in 1905 but left in 1907 to join a prospecting party at Archangel, and after three months went to South Africa where he was engaged in various mining pursuits until 1910. He then returned to the Royal School of Mines and obtained the A.R.S.M. in mining in 1911.
Mr. Kruger was then appointed to take charge of a manganese prospect in Sinai for the Etehead Syndicate, and in the following year he was appointed mining engineer to the Sawbwa of Haopaw, Northern Shan States, Burma, where he remained until 1915.
Returning to England he was commissioned to the Royal Engineers and served with Tunnelling Coys. in France until 1917 when he was promoted captain and sent to Salonika. From 1918 to 1920 he served with the army of occupation, in Constantinople where his duties included the inspection of mines in Anatolia and Asia Minor.
From 1921 to 1924 Mr. Kruger was engaged in private practice as a consultant in South West Africa. In 1925 he joined the staff of Lena Goldfields, Ltd., and when he left that company in 1930 he was assistant manager of the Lenskoje group of mines in Siberia.
From 1930 to 1939 he was again in private practice, for the first two years in Canada and later in London, and during this period spent the year 1934-35 in Kenya as manager of Kenya Consolidated Goldfields, Ltd.
During the 1939-45 war he was employed as an assistant civilian engineer by the War Office from October, 1939, to June, 1940, and was subsequently shop manager at a Royal Ordnance Factory for a year. He later became an area prospecting officer with the Directorate of Opencast Coal Production. Owing to failing health he retired from professional work in 1945, and lived in Nottingham.
Mr. Kruger was elected to Associate Membership of the Institution in 1911.
Vol. 62, Trans IMM 1952-53, p.561
