Donald Ker Fulton MacLachlan died on 5th February, 1960, aged 70.
Mr. MacLachlan was born in Scotland and from 1907 served a five-year apprenticeship with Messrs. Williamson, Miller and Robertson, civil and mining engineers of Edinburgh. In May, 1913, he was appointed valuation assistant, Inland Revenue, on the valuation of mining plant. He had during the past seven years also been training in mining engineering at the Heriot-Watt College, and gained the Mine Surveyor’s Certificate in 1913.
He began his overseas service in Northern Nigeria in December, 1913, as assistant mining engineer to West African Mines, Ltd., but on the outbreak of war in the following year he enlisted as a trooper in the Lovat Scouts. He was commissioned in 1916 and served in France with the B.E.F. with 184 Coy., R.E. He returned to England in 1918 and spent a year at the School of Military Engineering at Chatham, and was demobilized in April, 1919, with the rank of captain. Mr. MacLachlan then joined Sybu Syndicate, Ltd., as assistant mining engineer, prospector and surveyor on their alluvial and lode tin properties in Northern Nigeria, and became manager.
From 1931 to 1922 he was engaged in building construction work in France, and then joined Consolidated African Selection Trust, Ltd., where he was concerned principally with alluvial diamonds on the Gold Coast but also reported on areas in Southern Rhodesia and the Belgian Congo. Between 1927 and 1930 Mr. MacLachlan was chief engineer at Roan Antelope Copper Mines, Ltd., Northern Rhodesia, but returned to Consolidated African Selection Trust to head an expedition for diamonds in the Gold Coast and Sierra Leone. He was manager for Northern Nigerian Lead Mines, Ltd., from 1932 to 1935 and spent a year with the British Metal Corporation on lead-zinc and tin and tungsten properties in Ireland and Devon before returning to Nigeria to work with Associated Tin Mines of Nigeria, Ltd., in 1937-38.
From 1938 to 1941 Mr. MacLachlan served in the War Department as a civilian garrison engineer in charge of the construction of a large ordnance depot in Shropshire. He was commissioned lieutenant R.E., in 194-0, and in 1941 to 1942 saw service in India as captain C.R.E. and staff captain G.H.Q. He returned to England in 1942 and was released from the Army in January, 1943.
Mr. MacLachlan was sent by the Ministry of Works to Newcastle-upon-Tyne to inaugurate prospecting for opencast coal production and when the Ministry of Fuel and Power assumed responsibility for the work in 1945 he was appointed regional prospecting officer. He remained after the formation of the National Coal Board Opencast Executive in 1952 as regional opencast manager (development) for the Northern Region until his retirement in October, 1958.
Mr. MacLachlan had contributed papers to the technical press and one to the Transaction: of the Institution — ‘The sampling and estimation of bore-hole cores and sludges’ (vol. 40, 1930-31).
He joined the Institution as a Student in 1914, and was elected an Associate Member in 1920.
Vol. 70, Trans IMM 1960-61, p.159
