Leslie Alfred Edward Swinney died of blackwater fever at Alor Star, Kedar, Federated Malay States, on September 13th, 1921, his wife being with him at the time.
He was educated at Bedford Grammar School, and from 1896 to 1898 was assistant assayer under Mr. H.K. Picard to the Canadian Goldfields, Ltd., Deloro, Ont., Canada, on a bromo-cyanide plant treating auriferous arsenical pyrites. In 1900 he acted as assistant chemist to Mr. R.H. Harland, in the City, and in the following year he entered the Royal School of Mines, obtaining the first-class Associateship in Metallurgy, and first-class in Geology and Mechanics.
In 1904 he returned to Canada as assayer and assistant metallurgist to the silver-lead mines of the Ferguson Mines, Ltd., B.C., and obtained a certificate as provincial assayer for that province. Some months during the year following he was engaged in carrying out analytical and experimental work for the Brustad Mines Ltd., at Eidsvold, Norway. In 1905-6 he went to South Africa, and worked on the Knights Deep, Germiston, Transvaal, by virtue of a post-graduate scholarship awarded by the Institution, and while there was admitted to membership of the Chemical, Mining and Metallurgical Society of South Africa. He submitted to the Transactions of the Institution in 1906 a paper on ‘The Tavener Process’ (Trans., vol. xvi).
In 1907 he went to West Africa, as assayer, mine sampler, and surveyor to the Broomassie Mines, Ltd., and in 1909 was in South America on the Poderosa mine in Chile, for a short period. He then went to Sumatra for the Algemeene Exploratie Maatschappij, with whom he remained for several years.
He was in India early in 1914, and having returned home on the outbreak of the war enlisted in the Artists Rifles. In 1916 he was gazetted to the R.E., and was stationed at Richborough in the l.W. and D., Mechanical and Shipping Formation. After the war he went out to the Malay States as general manager of the Padang Plandok Tin, Ltd., in the jungle 30 miles from Alor Star.
Mr. Swinney was admitted to Studentship of the Institution in 1902, and was transferred to Associateship in 1907.
Vol. 32, Trans I.M.M., 1922-23, pp.293-4
