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Of any interest??? Mining Club Minute Book As its last treasurer, I have a Minute Book, containing the original handwritten minutes of the earliest meetings of committees of the Mining Club, which was based at 3, London Wall from June 1911 until the end of 1992. The Minute Book covers the meetings of the General Committee held from the first, on 5th May 1910 in Salisbury House, until the book (all 270 foolscap pages of it) was full, the last meeting recorded in it being dated 20th March 1916. Sadly, I do not think any history of The Mining Club was ever written. As its last Honorary Treasurer and also at that time editor of the monthly Mining Magazine, I tried to get people to send me notes which could have been used for an article, but there were few contributions. After the Club closed, the residual funds of £32,000 were donated to the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy (IMM) to be used to fund an annual travel scholarship for young persons in the industry. This still exists, and since the mergers of various institutions, The Mining Club Award is now administered by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IoMMM) headquartered at 1, Carlton House Terrace. In the Mining Magazine's editorial of January 1993 I wrote about the Club, as follows: "The Mining Club was established in London in May 1910 as a meeting place for those engaged in the industry. In those days over 500 mining companies had offices in the City of London, as did many consulting engineers of considerable international standing. The links between the new Club and the IMM were strong. The Club's initial committee included two past presidents of the IMM, Walter McDermott and Arthur C. Claudet; the IMM president of that year, Edgar Taylor; and the president-elect, H.L. Sulman. The Club's secretary was also the secretary of the IMM, while another member of the committee was ex-IMM council member T.A. Rickard, the first editor of Mining Magazine. Amongst the 74 original members of the Club was Herbert Clark Hoover (translator into English, with his wife Lou Henry Hoover, of Agricola's De Re Metallica and later President of the U.S.A.), who at that time had a consulting mining engineering practice based in London. Whereas the IMM was established to provide a professional body for those in the minerals industry, the Club was an informal gathering-place. After electing the initial membership, the first item of business recorded in the Club's Minute Book is that 'The question of providing cigars, playing cards, etc, was left to the House Committee'. The last paragraph of the Minutes recorded in the book, in March 1916, strikes a rather poignant note, bearing in mind what the tunnellers were doing in France: "The secretary read a letter received from Mr T Bruce Marriott, who asked to be allowed the loan of the specimen of the Korean miners' candle holder, presented to the Club by Mr A.G. Drucker, which he desired as an illustration for a lecture about to be delivered to a class of Royal Engineers. The request was at once granted and the secretary was authorised to send the trophy to Mr Bruce Marriott in accordance with the terms of his letter." The original meeting of the General Committee was attended by Sidney H. Farrar, President, in the Chair; Walter McDermott, Vice-President; H. L. Sulman; Arthur C. Claudet; George J. Holloway; Cyril E. Parsons; V. Herbert Smith; T. A. Rickard; E.O. Bannister; O.J. Reinhart; Bertram Blount; A.J Simon; and C. McDermid, Honorary Secretary. Apologies for absence were noted from Edgar Taylor; R.E Commans; and George Safford. The following new members were duly elected (their names listed in two parallel columns, in apparently random order, as follows: D'Arcy Weatherbe George Walter Leach John Collett Moulden Percy John Ogle James Andrerson Gilmour John N. Broomhead Harold Jeans O. Newhouse William Alfred Barron Julius Lezynsky Charles W. Grimwade William Hope Henderson George O'Hanlon E.L.C. Bishop James Knight H.C. Hoover J. Percy Ashmore W. A. Humfrey Robert Alexander Alston E. E. L. Dixon Lawrence Stevens Burt O. J. Jones Arthur Robert Clements P. Litherland Teed H. J. Graves A. W. J. Bleeck Percy Everley Jones A. N. Campbell H. J. Keen George Haworth Thomas G. Davey A. C. Schonburg Lester P. Sidney F. E. Birkinshaw Donald A. Campbell F. F. Skurray Matthew Tauylor Brown A. Otter H. J. Payne A. H. Rider James Jack H. Vincent Wallace Frederick H. Wintle E. Willey William A. Heywood Frank H. Probert Donald F. Campbell R. Donaldson L. H. Beckwith J. H. Jackson R. D. Connell R. E. Carr Henry Maurice Ray J. P. Pittar W. Maitland Edwards J. W. Dagnall J. V. Elsden E. Studt Franz Through the book there are, of course, many more lists of those who were accepted as members (happily, most later lists are in alphabetical order of surname!). The above notes list part of the contents of pages 1 and 2. Later in the book two names have caught my eye. One of those is Alfred Chester Beatty, elected on 27th June 1911, who played a major role in the development of the Northern Rhodesian Copper Belt. The other is Frederick H. Hatch, who was elected on 10th July 1911 - would he be the one who went on to set up a consulting firm of that name in Canada? Tony Brewis