Owen Letcher died in Johannesburg in October, 1943, at the age of 58.
After receiving his training at, the Redruth School of Mines, he went to the Witwatersrand and worked in various junior capacities on the Crown Reef, Village Main Reef and Nourse Deep mines. In 1903 he was appointed mining editor of The South African Mining and Engineering Journal, and in 1921 became editor of that journal. During this period he visited and wrote on almost every mining venture in the Union, Rhodesia and East and Central Africa, in addition to undertaking private reporting work.
From August, 1914, until December, 1918, he was on military service in South-west Africa and as Acting Captain in the 2nd South African Rifles in Central and East Africa.
He was the author of a number of books, including his monumental work, ‘The Gold Mines of Southern Africa’, written in 1936 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of the Witwatersrand. At the time of his death he was consulting editor of the Rhodesian Mining Journal and the Mining and Industrial Magazine of Southern Africa.
Mr. Letcher was elected a Student of the Institution in 1907, and was transferred to Associateship in 1910 and Membership in 1921.
Vol. 53, Trans IMM 1943-4, p.434
