Obituary

1935, June 15th

Colonel William Cuthbert Blackett died at his home at Durham on Thursday, at the age of 75.

The son of Dr. W. C. Blackett, he followed his father to Durham School, where he played in the XV., and went on to the Durham University College of Science at Newcastle. He worked in fitting shops and coalmines, became a mine manager and chief engineer, and specialised in colliery explosions and rescue work. He received the silver medal of the Royal Humane Society and was a Knight of Grace of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. He was managing director and mining engineer of the Charlaw and Sacriston Collieries, and a director of the Houghton Main Colliery and other companies. In the war he commanded several Territorial battalions and served in France in 1918, being made a C.B.E. He was past president of the Institute of Mining Engineers (Greenwell medallist) and of the North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, and an honorary member of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers. He was an honorary LL.D. of Birmingham and an honorary M.Sc. Of Durham, and a J.P. and D.L. for Durham County. His wife died last year leaving a son and a daughter.

Source: The Times