Harry Thompson Laity
Harry Thompson Laity (1878-1925)
1925 Obituary [1]
HARRY THOMPSON LAITY was born at Marazion, Cornwall, on 19th November 1878, and was educated at a local school and at the Grammar School, Hayle.
He served an apprenticeship with Messrs. Holman Brothers, Camborne, and during his indentures was a student at the local School of Mines.
On the completion of his apprenticeship he was engaged as assistant mechanical engineer by the Great Western Colliery Co., Pontypridd, South Wales, and he subsequently gained further useful experience in mining matters as chief mechanical engineer on the Dolgelley Copper Mines, North Wales.
In 1902 Mr. Laity left this country for South Africa. where for the first two years he was connected with the engineering department of the Shiba Gold Mining Co., at Barberton, in the Transvaal, and for the following two years, until 1906, at the Village Deep Gold-mining Company's cyanide plant at Johannesburg, in respect to which he was in full charge of the mechanical department.
He was then appointed travelling superintendent engineer for Messrs. Fraser and Chalmers in connexion with construction work on various mines, and this position led later on to his taking up a position as resident engineer at the Clydesdale Collieries, Orange Free State.
A similar position in connexion with the Durban Navigation group of Collieries, Dannhauser, Natal, followed, and in all these posts the subject of this Memoir was responsible for construction and maintenance work in connexion with all kinds of mining machinery, both mechanical and electrical.
Mr. Laity held the last-mentioned position up to the time of his death, which occurred this year.
He joined this Institution as an Associate Member in 1907 and became a Member in 1918.