Richard F. Maxwell Williams died of enteric fever in hospital at Rangoon on January 11th, 1929, at the age of 34.
He entered the Royal School of Mines in 1913, but on the outbreak of war he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve and took part in the ill-fated expedition to Antwerp, with the result that he was interned in Holland from October, 1914, to the suspension of hostilities in 1918. He then resumed his studies at the Royal School of Mines until May, 1919. In December of that year he obtained an appointment at the Gold Pan mine in Manitoba.
Returning to England, he underwent a year’s special course in surveying and assaying at the Camborne School of Mines. In 1923 he proceeded to South America to join the staff of the North Venezuelan Petroleum Co., and in 1926 was appointed mine superintendent of two of the properties of the Fabulosa Mines Consolidated, in Bolivia. In the autumn of the same year he was engaged as assistant to Colonel H.H. Yuill, in the examination of gold and diamond properties in Venezuela for the Central Mining Corporation, and in November, 1927, acted as assistant to Mr. Ross Macartney in the examination of tin properties in Burma. His last appointment was as chief surveyor to the Consolidated Tin Mines of Burma.
Mr. Williams was admitted to Studentship of the Institution in 1927.
Vol. 39, Trans IMM 1929-30, pp.697-8
