Frederick Percy Rolfe died of Spanish influenza, in Rhodesia, during the epidemic towards the close of 1918, aged 34 years.
His educational career gave fine promise for a future which unfortunately was cut short by his death, as the following brief record will show: 1898-1900, Intermediate Scholar, and 1900-1903 Senior Scholar, of the County of Norfolk ; 1900, Richard England Prizeman; 1900-1908, National Scholar; 1900-1908, Royal School of Mines where he graduated A.R.S.M.; 1901, Royal Scholar; 1903, De la Beche Medallist; also Board of Education Prizeman in Mining; also awarded I.M.M. Postgraduate Scholarship of £50; and 1909, Warington Smyth Medallist and Prizeman.
In 1902 he visited Linares, in Spain, and studied the lead and silver mining and metallurgy in that district. From 1908-1906 he was in Western Australia where he took his two years’ post-graduate course at the Sons of Gwalia and South Kalgurli Gold Mines and was subsequently chief sampler to the Lake View Consols Gold Mine.
In 1907 he visited the goldfields of Waihi and Thames (New Zealand), Mother Lode (California), Goldfield and Tonopah (Nevada) and Cripple Creek (Colorado). In the same year he was appointed general manager of the Keystone Gold Mine, Wyoming, U.S.A., and in the following year, 1908, became superintendent of the Colombian Mining & Exploration Co., Ltd., in the Republic of Colombia. In January, 1910, he was appointed general manager of Spanish Mines Consolidated, Ltd., working lead, zinc and silver mines in Spain, but in the following year he became associated with the Barnato group of mines in the Transvaal, as acting-manager of the Government Gold Mining Areas (Modderfontein) Consolidated, Ltd., and assistant-manager of the Consolidated Langlaate Mines, Ltd. From June, 1913, he was manager of the Peach Tree (Transvaal) Syndicate, Ltd., Pilgrim’s Rest, Transvaal, until in 1914 he joined the Fred Mine, Filabusi, Southern Rhodesia.
He contributed two papers to the publications of the Institution, ‘Shrinkage Stoping in Western Australia ’ (Trans., vol. xviii) and ‘Illogical Precision in Mine Reports ’ (Trans., vol. xxi),
Mr. Rolfe was admitted to Studentship of the Institution in 1903, and was transferred to Associateship in 1911 and to Membership in 1914.
Vol. 29, Trans I.M.M., 1919-20, pp.437-8
