Wladimir Raffalovich Mansfield
Wladimir Raffalovich Mansfield (1876-1949)
1950 Obituary [1]
"Lt.-Col. WLADIMIR RAFFALOVICH MANSFIELD, who was born in 1876, was elected a Member of the Institution in 1922. He had had considerable experience of railway operations in South Africa and on the Continent. He received his general and technical education in Holland and Germany and obtained diplomas in civil and mechanical engineering. After gaining experience as engineering assistant to the chief traffic manager of the Transvaal Railways he was employed, initially, in a similar capacity by the German Trust Railways at Berlin, and later as a civil and mechanical engineer. He returned to South Africa in 1903 and went into practice as a consulting engineer to a financial group in Johannesburg. In 1909 he became general manager to the Voorspore Diamond Mining Co, Orange Free State, and two years later was appointed consulting engineer and technical adviser to the New Transvaal Chemical Co.
In 1917 he joined H.M. Forces and was commissioned as a Railway Transport Officer with the rank of lieutenant. He served in France and was eventually promoted to the rank of lieutenant-colonel and appointed assistant director of general transportation. On the conclusion of hostilities he served as a member of the Inter-allied Railway Commission in Germany and was then engaged as chief engineer and production superintendent in charge of an ammunition breaking-down factory in France. Of recent years Colonel Mansfield had been interested in photographic research and had equipped a laboratory for this purpose. His death occurred on 27th June 1949."