William Whyte died rather suddenly after a long illness, at his residence at Bispham, Lancashire, on April 4th, 1934, at the age of 52.
He entered the Camborne School of Mines in 1902, and obtained 1st class Honours in addition to the bronze medal of the City and Guilds of London, and the King’s Prize in mining awarded by the Board of Education. In December, 1905, he was appointed assistant engineer to the Central Provinces Prospecting Syndicate at their Mansur manganese mines in the Nagpur District, India.
In 1909, he went to South Africa as surveyor and section manager to a gold mine on the Witwatersrand, and subsequently as mine superintendent and acting manager of the Messina copper mine in the Northern Transvaal.
Returning to England in 1920, he went to the Republic of Colombia in the following year as underground manager to the Marmato gold mine. Three years later he went in a similar capacity to the Mazapil Copper Co., Ltd., Zacatecas, Mexico, and in 1928 to the Wiluna Gold Mines, Ltd., Western Australia. He contributed two papers to the Transactions of the Institution: ‘Notes on Mine Survey Records and Calculations’ (vol. xxiii, 1913-14), and ‘Stope Measurement at Messina’ (vol. xxvi, 1916-17), and took part in the discussion of other papers from time to time.
Mr. Whyte was admitted to Studentship of the Institution in 1906, and was transferred to Associateship in 1908.
Vol. 44, Trans IMM 1934-35, pp.570-1
