William Moore (1834-1889)
William Moore (1834-1889)
1889 Obituary [1]
WILLIAM MOORE was born at Penstone, East Lothian, Scotland, on the 20th of November, 1834, and died at Glasgow on the 19th of May, 1889.
He served his apprenticeship in Glasgow, and then went to Dundyvan Iron-works. There he was so untiring in his duties, and in surveying the mines and pits all over Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, that he was taken into partnership by Mr. Mackenzie, the manager of the works, who had an office in Glasgow for civil and mining engineering.
In 1866 he was in business for himself, and from that year was mostly engaged in foreign work. He first went to Huelva, in the south of Spain, to report on the Tharsis Mines ; and, on the formation of the present Company, he was engaged to construct the railway from the mines to the mouth of the Odiel, as well as the piers and bridges. He was also engineer for the Marbella Railway, near Malaga, and reported on copper and other mines in various parts of the Continent, including the north of Norway, near Hammerfest.
He was likewise engaged in Turkey, in Asia, and in North and South America; it was while in the latter country, after reporting on the Falnatina Mines on the east side of the Andes, and when he found he could neither get back to Buenos Ayres (then infected with cholera), nor go by the usual pass over the Andes (as the quarantine there would have delayed him too long), that Mr. Moore attempted an unusually high pass of 20,400 feet; after much suffering he reached the other side, and took ship for home round by the Cape; but from that time his health was never robust, and he was subject to ague and asthma. Mr. Moore was very successful in arbitration cases, having a clear and concise way of arranging his facts. Although of a retiring disposition, he was pleasant and genial in all his business relations, and a most kind father and husband. He was the Author of a “Practical Treatise on Pit Machinery,” and of various Papers to scientific societies. At his death he had just completed a work on “A Rapid Way of Calculating and Laying Out Curves,” but it is only in manuscript.
Mr. Moore was elected a Member of the Institution on the 3rd of May, 1870.