James Wilson Williams died at Abbotsford, British Columbia, on February 5th, 1916, aged 45 years. His death, which was the result of a mine accident, was almost instantaneous.
His early years were spent in South Australia and Victoria, where for six years he worked as a miner and prospector. Recognizing that the practical experience he had thus gained needed supplementing by theory and a wider knowledge of textbooks, he went to Bendigo and for eight months studied surveying and general hydraulics under a private tutor. This was in 1894, and ten years later Mr. Williams made a similar pause in his work and devoted six months to the study of assaying under Mr. G.T. Holloway.
After four years in Western Australia, where he filled various posts on the gold mines of the district, he went to British Columbia as manager to the Chaplean Consolidated Gold Mining Co., Ltd., and remained in this position for two and a half years. In 1902, six months were occupied in prospecting and examining gold properties in West Africa, and were followed by a year as mining engineer to the Nerchinsk Gold Co., Ltd., in Eastern Siberia.
After the termination of his studies in London, which have already been noticed, Mr. Williams took a reporting journey to Tierra del Fuego, at the end of 1905, and on its conclusion spent two years reporting on tin properties in Bolivia. He remained a further eighteen months in Bolivia, as manager to the Compania Mineria de Uncia, and returned to England at the close of the year 1910. He went to Cornwall and for some months was occupied in studying the special treatment of wolfram tin ores at the South Crofty Mine. After a year in England he settled at Abbotsford, British Columbia, in March, 1912, and practised as a consulting engineer in that town until he met with his untimely end four years later.
Mr. Williams was admitted to Studentship of the Institution in 1906 and was transferred to Associateship in 1911.
Vol. 25, Trans IMM 1915-16, pp.409-10
