Nathaniel Wilson
Nathaniel Wilson (c1862-1944)
1945 Obituary [1]
Lt.-Colonel NATHANIEL WILSON, C.M.G., D.S.O., late R.E., whose death occurred at Topsham, Devon, on 8th May 1944, at the age of eighty-two, was well known in Johannesburg as a consultant and also as a prominent mechanical engineer. He had been a Member of the Institution since 1911.
He was born at Lanark and educated at the local grammar school and received his technical training in machine construction and mechanical engineering at the Glasgow and West of Scotland. Technical College. On the termination of a four years' apprenticeship with various engineering firms in the West of Scotland he gained experience in the manufacture of gold and silver mining machinery at the works of Messrs. Fraser and Chalmers, Chicago, U.S.A.
During the next six years he was with the New York, Honduras, and Rosario Mining Company in Central America, first as assistant chief and subsequently as chief mechanic. He was in full charge of all mechanical work, and was responsible for the design of a stamp mill and other mining apparatus. He then went to South Africa and for nine years was consulting mechanical engineer to the group of gold mines in the Transvaal controlled by Messrs. S. Neumann and Company. Later he became consultant to the East Rand Proprietary Mines, Ltd., for whom he carried out large extensions which included the equipment for two new electrically driven stamp mills, thus more than doubling the capacity of the mills. Under his direction a central electric station was erected, complete with three 1,000 kW. Belliss and Morcom generating sets and the requisite boiler plant, and extension pumping plants were also installed at the various shafts.
Colonel Wilson had a distinguished military career. In the South African War he served as a major in the Cape Pioneer Railway Regiment, gaining the Queen's Medal with three clasps and receiving the award of the D.S.O., in recognition of his services. In 1901 he was personally decorated by King Edward VII. During the war of 1914-18 he served in France as a major and later as lieutenant-colonel in the Royal Engineers, being O.C. railway construction troops and later assistant director of railways on the Somme front. He was twice mentioned in dispatches and was awarded the C.M.G. in 1917. Two years later he was gazette,' to the substantive rank of lieutenant-colonel.