Alfred W.G. Wilson died on 9th January, 1954, in the Ottawa Civic Hospital. He was 80 years of age.
Born at Cobourg, Ontario, he began his University training at Victoria College (then at Cobourg but since transferred to Toronto), taking his final year at the School of Practical Science, Toronto, and gaining the B.A. degree of Toronto University and the Gold Medal in Natural Science in 1893. For the following five years he was a teacher of mathematics and natural science, before entering Harvard with a fellowship in geology. He was awarded the A.M. degree in geology of Harvard in 1899, and the Ph.D. degree in 1901.
From 1902 to 1906 Dr. Wilson was demonstrator in geology at McGill University, and during the summer vacations led field parties to the Northwest Territories, Central and Northern Ontario, and British Columbia. In 1906 he was in charge of extensive explorations in northern Quebec for private interests, and continued in private practice as mining geologist and engineer until 1909, being engaged on exploration and prospecting in Temagami forest reserve for seven months in 1907 and in 1908 completing a report for the Geological Survey on the district around Lake Nipigon.
Dr. Wilson joined the Federal Mines Department in 1909 as mining engineer, and in 1910 was made Chief Engineer, Metal Mines Division. During the 1914-1918 war he was technical adviser to the Shell Committee, the War Trade Board, and the Tariff Board, and he also organized a Toronto company — Wilson Munitions, Ltd. — to produce shrapnel by a process of his own invention.
He was appointed Chief of the Mineral Resources Division of the Mines Department in 1921; he was a delegate to the Imperial Economic Conference in London in 1932; and in 1936 became chief technical consultant to the Department. He retired in 1941, but continued to render service to Canada as Special Consultant on Strategic Minerals and Chemicals to the National Defense, Finance, Trade and Commerce Departments, and was Chairman of the Defense Department’s Chemical Supplies Committee.
He was the author of a number of technical papers and various reports published by the Canadian Geological Survey or Department of Mines, including ‘Pyrites in Canada: its occurrence, exploitation, dressing and uses’, 1912; ‘The copper smelting industries of Canada,’ 1913; and ‘Development of chemical metallurgical and allied industries in Canada in relation to the mineral industry’, published in two volumes by the Department of Mines in 1924.
Dr. Wilson was elected to Membership of the Institution in 1911. He was also a member of long standing of the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, the Geological Society of America and the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers.
Vol. 64, Trans IMM 1954-55, p.84
