Harry John Smith (1872-1922)
1922 Obituary [1]
HARRY JOHN SMITH was born in London on 14th May 1872, and served his apprenticeship at the Great Eastern Railway Locomotive Works at Stratford.
On its completion six years later he went to Brazil as assistant mechanical engineer on the Mogyana Railway, transferring later to the San Paulo Railway.
Town life not appealing to him, he went as engineer to the St. John Del Rey Gold Mining Co., where he stayed eight years. He subsequently visited other parts of Brazil, the West Indies, and the United States. In the latter country he studied the methods of handling material in bulk, and arrived in England in time to secure an engagement from Messrs. Fraser and Chalmers, Ltd., to elect the first conveyor shipping plant on the Mediterranean coast.
This was followed by the erection of a large coal-hauling plant for the Argentine, and the first belt coal shipping plant in England, the latter for the North-Eastern Railway Co. at Hull. He next visited various countries to supervise the erection of coal-handling appliances and transporters, of which he gave descriptions and results of his own experience in a Paper on "Mechanical Loading of Ships," read before this Institution in 1921.
His death took place from paralysis in Shanghai, on 1st February 1922, in his fiftieth Year.
He because a Member of this Institution in 1918.