Ethelbert George Woodford, American mining engineer, was the son of John Wyman Woodford and his wife Mary Ann Lloyd. He was educated in England and came to the Witwatersrand soon after the discovery of gold in 1886. However, he appears to have been in South Africa for some time before this, as two of his children were born in Aliwal North in 1879 and 1883. In 1887 he was appointed as the first State Mining Engineer of the South African Republic (Transvaal), but in 1890 held the post of mining commissioner in Johannesburg. In 1893 he applied for naturalization as a citizen of the Republic. That same year he applied for an appointment as mining inspector and was appointed in that post for the eastern inspection area. In 1899 he opened an engineering firm in Johannesburg, but may have left the country after the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) broke out later that year. He subsequently worked as a mining engineer in South America, Russia, Siberia and Alaska. He was married twice, first to Susanna Helena ("Sannie") Vogel and later to Ada Sarah Russell. He had six children.

List of sources:

Ethelbert George Woodford. Ancestry. Retrieved on 15 June 2021 from https://www.ancestry.ca/genealogy/records/ethelbert-george-woodford-24-l78qg

Katz, E. The contribution of American mining engineers and technologies to the Witwatersrand gold mining industry, 1890-1910. Retrieved on 15 June 2021 from https://www.mininghistoryassociation.org/Journal/MHJ-v13-2006-Katz.pdf

National Automated Archival Information Retrieval System (NAAIRS). http://national.archives.gov.za/naairs.htm Documents relating to E.G. Woodford.

Obituary: Ethelbert George Woodford (1850-1923), noted mining engineer. Retrieved on 15 June 2021 from https://www.genealogy.com/forum/surnames/topics/woodford/424/

Compiled by: C. Plug

Last updated: 2021-06-15 14:22:00