Dear Mining Historians, 
Frederick Henry Hatch (1864-1932), English petrologist, mining engineer/geologist (especially gold).

I am working on a biography of Hatch (apart from contemporary obituaries, short entries on him appear in the following: D.L.J. Visser, 1972, in Dictionary of South African Biography, W.J. de Kock (ed.), II, p. 292-293; C.G. Rumke, 1972, in Standard Dictionary of Southern Africa, V, p. 449-450; and R.J. Howarth, 1993, Dictionary of National Biography [UK]. Missing Persons vol., p. 293-4). He is best known in the mining world for his pioneering work in the Witwatersrand goldfield in the 1890s, about which there is plenty of information.  Although I have had a great deal of help from Hatch's descendants, apart from his many publications, none of his personal technical correspondence or reports seem to have survived and records of  the London office of the firm of Lewis & Marks [Threadneedle House, 34 Bishopsgate St., London EC], with whom he worked as a consultant in London, following his return from South Africa, appear to have been destroyed in the WWII bombing of London.

I would be most grateful to hear from anyone who might have come across his name in connection with the following consultancy investigations, about which there is virtually no information, other than a bare mention of the places in an obituary notice or his own Who's Who entries:

1896 (?late 1895), copper mines, Huelva, Spain; 1898-9,  (a) USA: Montana, Arizona, New Jersey, and ? Californian goldfields; (b) gold, copper and nickel mines in Canada ("Sudbury, Lake Huron, Lake of the Woods and [Kootenay Lake] British Columbia"); 1900 Spain; 1906, Russia, Orenburg goldfield, Siberia; 1912, Urals; 1914 Canada; 1918 iron-orefields of  north-western France; there is also a statement (in 1922) that at some point after 1906 he also visited Italy.

Regarding his early work in S. Africa, I am finding it extremely difficult to sort out the name of the company Hatch might have worked for  when he first went out to Johannesberg in late summer of 1892 (this date is definitely correct). In one of his publications, Hatch mentions the South African Trust and Finance Co. (SATF), managed by someone called W.Y. Campbell, prior to working with John Hays Hammond at Gold Fields.  

However, in Hammond's autobiography, he says that he went out to S.A. to work for 'Barney' Barnato in the late summer/autumn of 1893. The company might have been De Beers Consolidated Mines;  JHH says it was managed in Johannesburg by Solly Joel  and that he (JHH) recruited Hatch and J.A. Chalmers, 'among others from England', to work for him.  After working for Barnato for six months, Hammond  left Barnato's employment  c. April 1894 and was then invited by Cecil Rhodes to become Chief consulting engineer of Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa (CGFSA).  He did so, taking Hatch and Chalmers with him, some months before they all went on the famous Mashonaland expedition with Rhodes and Jameson in the autumn of 1894.
However, I have nowhere been able to find a definitive account of which gold-mining companies BB owned in 1892, and need to find out if  SATF was in fact Barnato's or was a Rhodes precursor to CGFSA, as Hatch himself often simply refers to having worked for 'Gold Fields'.  Does anyone know if there a society for South African mining history, or an individual out there, who might be able to help me with this? I have not been able to find a South African mining history society on the Internet.

With thanks for any information regarding these queries.

Richard J. Howarth
Honorary Professor of Mathematical Geology
University College London
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