Walter McDermott died, after a brief illness, at his residence in Chelsea, on May 29th, 1940, at the age of 88.
His first appointment after leaving school was in 1870, when he was engaged by the Glaisdale Iron
Works, Yorkshire, as analytical chemist. In the following year he went across to North America as assayer to the Silver Islet Mines, Lake Superior, where he was also in charge of the concentration department, in addition to surveying and prospecting. During the five years of this engagement he was one of the joint inventors of the Frue vanner.
During 1876, he returned to Europe to investigate concentration methods in Cornwall, Germany, Austria; and Italy, and then went back to the United States, where he planned mills. From 1877 to 1880 he was occupied in reporting on gold and silver mines in Colorado, Utah, Nevada, California and Montana, and while in the last-named State became manager of the Belmont Gold Mine; from 1881 to 1888 he was joint owner and manager of ore milling and testing works in New York, and made further reporting trips to gold, silver and copper mines in the States already referred to, and in the Lake Superior district, Idaho, New Mexico, the Southern States, and Newfoundland.
In 1889 he returned to England and established himself as a consulting engineer in London, and was appointed managing director of Fraser & Chalmers, Ltd. At various times he was director of the following companies: Anglo-American Corporation of South Africa, Ltd.; Consolidated, Mines Selection Co., of which he was also Chairman; Fresnillo Co.; Mexican Corporation, Ltd.; Rhodesian Anglo-American, Ltd.; West Rand Investment Trust, Ltd.; and West Springs, Ltd. In spite of the demands made on his time by professional obligations, he took a keen interest in outside interests, and more particularly in the political trend of the Trades Union movement, on various aspects of which he was a prolific pamphleteer.
Mr. McDermott was a Member of the Institution from its foundation in 1892 and a Member of Council from 1894 to 1912, in the meantime holding the office of Vice-President in 1897-98, and President during the year 1898-99. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Institution in 1911 in recognition of his special services in the equipment of the Bessemer Laboratory of the Royal School of Mines and as the Representative of the Institution on the Board of Governors of the Imperial College of Science and Technology during the period of its establishment and organization, and to signalize his services in the advancement of metallurgical practice.
He was elected an Honorary Member of the Institution in 1940.
Vol. 50, Trans IMM 1940-41, pp.449-50
