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Name: LETCHER, Owen

Birth Date: 1884 Redruth, Cornwall

Death Date: 14 Oct 1943 Germiston, Johannesburg, TB

First Date: 1909

Profession: Mining engineer

Area: Molo

Married: In Potchefstroom, S. Africa 30 Sep 1915 Margaret Watdon Mair b. 1890 Glasgow

Children: Douglas Mair Wymond (27 July 1927 Johannesburg-3 Aug 1975 Johannesburg)

Book Reference: Hut, Drumkey, Chandler, North

General Information:

Chandler - Letcher was an interesting man whose hunting fame rests on his book "Big Game Hunting in Northeastern Rhodesia" (1911). Having studied at the Redruth School of Mines in Cornwall, Letcher came to the Transvaal at the age of 20 as a mining engineer. In 1908 he spent a month or so on the Mau escarpment in British East Africa. In 1909 he walked from Tete in Mozambique to Fort Jameson, Northern Rhodesia, which was his home for the next few years. ……………… [more]
Letcher went on to have a distinguished career. In WW1 he served with the Nyasa-Rhodesian Field Force. He later became a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a member of London's prestigious Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. He died in Johannesburg on 14 October 1943.
Web - Northern Mine Research Society After receiving his training at, the Redruth School of Mines, he went to the Witwatersrand and worked in various junior capacities on the Crown Reef, Village Main Reef and Nourse Deep mines. In 1903 he was appointed mining editor of The South African Mining and Engineering Journal, and in 1921 became editor of that journal. During this period he visited and wrote on almost every mining venture in the Union, Rhodesia and East and Central Africa, in addition to undertaking private reporting work. From August, 1914, until December, 1918, he was on military service in South-west Africa and as Acting Captain in the 2nd South African Ri?es in Central and East Africa. He was the author of a number of books, including his monumental work, ‘The Gold Mines of Southern Africa’, written in 1936 to commemorate the ?ftieth anniversary of the proclamation of the Witwatersrand. At the time of his death he was consulting editor of the Rhodesian Mining Journal and the Mining and Industrial Magazine of Southern Africa. Mr. Letcher was elected a Student of the Institution in 1907, and was transferred to Associateship in 1910 and Membership in 1921.

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