Frederick (William) Cardell Pengilly was the son of Charles Pengilly and his wife Jane, born Harrison. He was an associate of the (British) Institution of Mining and Metallurgy but seems to have come to the Witwatersrand from Australia about 1896. By January 1897 he was a member of the Chemical and Metallurgical Society of South Africa and in December that year read a paper before it on "Australian slimes agitation vat". The paper was published in the society's Proceedings (Vol. 2, pp. 180-182). Three months later he read a related paper, "Notes on Deedle's gold extractor (an Australian slimes agitating vat)" (Proceedings, February 1898, Vol. 2, pp. 234-237). That same year he contributed another paper on the same subject, "On the successful treatment of tailings by the direct filling process on the Witwatersrand", to the Transactions of the [British] Institution of Mining and Metallurgy (1898). In June 1902 he was reported to have left for Canada.
Pengilly married Elizabeth Jane Carkeek on 14 November 1891 and they had a son and two daughters.
