Peter Norman Nissen died at his home in Westerham, Kent, on March 2nd, 1930, at the age of 57.
He was Canadian by birth, and from 1889 to 1892 was a student of mining geology at Trinity College, North Carolina, U.S.A. On completion of his course he was occupied for four years in constructing stamp mills in Nova Scotia, and then for a period of about three years entered as a student at the School of Mines, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, during which time he constructed and operated a testing plant for the school. For a further four years from 1900 he was occupied in building stamp mills in Northern Ontario, and in 1904 he was appointed superintendent of gold mines owned by the Lake Superior Power Co. At about this date he invented the well-known Nissen stamp mill which was afterwards in considerable use on South African and Rhodesian mines.
During the War he served in the Royal Engineers, attaining the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel, and was for some time actively engaged on the Belgian sector. He designed the Nissen Hut in addition to bringing out other useful devices, and for these and his war service he received the D.S.O. In addition to being an engineer of exceptional ability and resource, he was in his spare time a sculptor of some talent. He designed and executed the War Memorial erected in the library of the Institution, which was unveiled by Earl Haig with appropriate ceremony on November 24th, 1921 (see Transactions, vol. xxx, pp. lxxix-lxxxiv).
Colonel Nissen was elected an Associate of the Institution in 1912, and was transferred to Membership in the same year. He served on the Council from 1920 until the date of his death.
Vol. 40, Trans IMM 1930-31, pp.453-4
