Frederick Henry Hatch
Frederick Henry Hatch (c1864-1932)
1932 Obituary[1]
THE LATE DR. F. H. HATCH.
The death occurred on Thursday, September 22, of Dr. Frederick Henry Hatch, O.B.E., well-known in mining and geological circles. Dr. Hatch who was 68 at the time of his death, was born in London, and received his education at University College, where he won a gold medal and Tufnell scholarship. He followed this up by study at Bonn University from 1883 to 1886, in geology, chemistry and mining engineering, taking the degree of Ph.D. Subsequently he joined H.M. Geological Survey of England and Wales, on the staff of which he was employed until 1892, when he went out to South Africa, as a mining engineer, acting as consultant to the South Africa Trust and Finance Company, and the Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa. In 1898-99, he was engaged in Canada and the United States.
His services were in wide request, and he reported on the possibilities of various fields, including the gold resources of India to the Indian Government; Abyssinia (1901); the resources of Natal and Zululand to the Natal Government (1909); the Urals (1912); Canada (1914), &c. During the war he was a member of the Advisory Committee on Mineral Resources, and a member of the Home Iron Ore Supply Committee of the Ministry of Munitions. He was also Director of the Mineral Resources Development Branch of the Board of Trade from 1919-20, and from 1919 until 1925 was a member of the governing body of the Imperial Mineral Resources Bureau. Dr. Hatch was on the Board of Trade Committee on the Non-Ferrous Mining Industry in 1920, while in 1918 he had represented the Board of Trade and Ministry of Munitions on the Commission appointed to report on the iron-ore fields of the North-West of France. He was also a member of the 1919 Commission which reported on the condition of the iron and steel works in the areas in France and Belgium occupied by Germany. He has since 1920 acted on the Advisory Committee of the Mines Department on Metalliferous Mining.
Dr. Hatch was responsible for numerous publications, two being in conjunction with co-authors, viz., TAe Gold Mines of the Rand (with J. A. Chalmers), and TAe Geology of South Africa (with G. S. Corstor-phine). His reports on the Kolar Goldfield and on the resources of Natal were also published. In 1911, he delivered the James Forrest Lecture before the Institution of Civil Engineers, his subject being “ The Past, Present and Future of the Gold Mining Industry of the Witwatersrand, Transvaal.” That institution he joined as an associate member in 1895, being transferred to full membership in 1901. He was president of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy in 1914, when the subject of his address was “ The Relation of Geology to Mining.”