Arthur Thomas died early in 1986 at the age of 69.
After studying at the Camborne and Penzance Schools of Mines, he worked from 1891 to 1893 at Tregartha Downs Mines, Ltd., in Cornwall. In the latter year he was appointed manager of La Goya mine, Huelva, Spain, and in 1894 he joined his brother, who was managing a gold mine in Nova Scotia. Shortly afterwards he was appointed manager of the Mammoth gold mine in California, and from 1896 to 1899 he was in charge of two gold mines in the El Oro district of Mexico, where he acted as mining adviser to the late Lord Cowdray.
In 1899 he went to the Dutch East Indies, where he spent a year in examining mines for Bainbridge, Seymour & Co. On his return to England in 1900 he was appointed manager of Spanish Minerals Development, Ltd., at Huelva, where he remained for three years. In 1903 he went to the Sudan for John Taylor & Sons, and in 1905 left for the Argentine Republic to take up the post of manager of the Famatina Development Corporation, Ltd., whose mines were among the highest in the world. Here he stayed until 1909, when he returned to England and practised as a consulting engineer on his own account. In the following two years he undertook examining and reporting work in Spain, Newfoundland and Cornwall, but in 1911 he ceased to practise and accepted an appointment as manager of The Consolidated Mines of El Oro, Ltd., in Mexico.
In 1918 he joined the staff of Holman Bros. and for two years superintended rock drilling tests. From 1915 to 1919 he was in charge of the mining department of The British Engineering Co. of Russia and Siberia, and lived for most of the time in the Urals. In 1920 he again went to Mexico, as mining engineer attached to the Anglo-Mexican Trading Co. of Mexico City, and for three years travelled in all parts of the country. In 1924 he was sent to Russia to examine deposits of iron and manganese, and in the following year he reported on copper and cobalt mines in Spain.
From 1926 to 1927 he was again in private practice in London, but in 1928 he was on the west coast of Mexico, examining a group of properties. In 1929 he joined the staff of Lena Goldfields Ltd., and superintended mining operations for copper in the Urals, lead and zinc in the Altai, and coal in the Kusnetz district. In 1930 he was invited by the Russian Trust for gold, etc., to act as their chief engineer for a subsidiary trust to prospect for and develop ores of beryllium, tantalum, vanadium, and other rare metals; and in 1931 he returned to England.
Mr. Thomas was elected an Associate of the Institution in 1893, and was transferred to Membership in 1901.
Vol. 46, Trans IMM 1936-7, pp.833-4
