Richard Oliver Gardner Drummond
Richard Oliver Gardner Drummond (1862-1898)
1898 Obituary [1]
RICHARD OLIVER GARDNER DRUMMOND was born in Manchester on 6th January 1862.
He served a four years' apprenticeship from 1879 to 1882 with Messrs. Mather and Platt, Salford Iron Works, and in 1880 superintended for them the erection of machinery for steam laundries. Going out to Cape Colony, he worked first as a mechanical engineer on the Cape Government Railways, and afterwards as a draughtsman in the office of Messrs. Marshall and Co., agents in Port Elizabeth, where also he assisted in the erection of lighting apparatus for the exhibition held there in 1884-5.
He was then engaged by the French Diamond Mining Co., Kimberley, as engineer and electrician until 1887, when he was employed by De Beer's Diamond Mining Co., Kimberley, to erect engines, dynamos, &c., and in 1887 became their managing electrician. Besides lighting all their underground workings, he applied electric motors to pumping, hoisting, ventilating, sawing, and other operations.
During the same period he was also appointed borough electrician for Kimberley, electrical engineer to the Kimberley exhibition, and consulting engineer to the Bultfontein Mining Co. and to the Anglo-African Diamond Mining Co.
In 1893 he joined Messrs. Reunert and Lenz, electrical and mechanical engineers to various of the mines in Johannesburg. With them he was engaged in designing and carrying out electrical arrangements for pumping, lighting, and ventilating numerous mines in the Transvaal. He also designed and erected the whole of the machinery for the Johannesburg electric-lighting station at Park Town.
His death took place at Johannesburg on 23rd June 1898 at the age of thirty-six.
He became a Member of this Institution in 1889.
1898 Obituary [2]
1899 Obituary [3]