Frank Espie
ESPIE, Frank Fancett, BE DipAppSc FSASM MAusIMM MIMMAmer (1890-1962)
Frank was born on September 3, 1890, in East Adelaide, South Australia, the only son of stockbroker James Espie and his wife Alice Maud Espie (nee Fancett).
Frank travelled to London with his mother and was living with her at St Martin in the Fields in 1901. Frank returned to South Australia with his father on the “RMS India” in October 1902.
His secondary schooling was at St Peter’s Collegiate School, Adelaide, from 1903. He sat his Junior Certificate and his Senior Certificate there between 1904 and 1907.
He commenced multifaceted study around 1909 at the Adelaide School of Art, South Australian School of Mines and the Adelaide University. In 1913 he completed a Bachelor of Engineering and Diploma of Applied Science from Adelaide University and a Fellowship Diploma from the South Australian School of Mines. He also found time for interstate university rowing competitions and to be Secretary Treasurer of the Adelaide University Rowing Club. In June 1910, he was part of the winning eight in the intervarsity Oxford Cambridge Cup race on the Yarra River.
After graduating in 1913, he worked for short periods in Kalgoorlie, at the Golden Horseshoe Mine and also in Broken Hill, and then joined, in 1914, the Burma Corporation, the company formed in 1913 by Herbert Hoover. His initial work was as an assistant surveyor.
On December 6, 1915, he married Laura Jean Fletcher in Rangoon, Burma. They had three children, Frank Fletcher Espie, Nancy Fletcher Espie and Margaret Alice (Meg or Peg) Espie.
Frank became the manager of the operations of Burma Mines Ltd, which was mining a large silver lead deposit at Bawdin in north eastern Burma. At the mine he supervised the driving of the Tiger Tunnel, an adit, 2,250 m long, driven into the side of a mountain to open up a newly discovered ore body. He also worked on the construction of a hydro-electric plant at Mansam Falls. He became assistant superintendent of the mine in 1928, its superintendent in 1940, and general manager in 1941. The silver lead mine was one of the richest in the world and had a workforce of almost 10,000.
After the invasion of Burma by the Japanese, in April 1942, he supervised the demolition of the mechanical plant at the mine and successfully led a group of 160 people comprising his staff and their families on an 800 mile hazardous evacuation, over land to India, through Upper Burma and Assam to Calcutta. It included walking a 100 mile section through steep terrain.
Frank returned to Australia in 1942 and became general superintendent in Western Australia for Western Mining Corporation in July 1943, a post which he held for fifteen years. Frank was appointed a director of Gold Mines of Australia, of Western Mining Corporation, of Gold Mines of Kalgoorlie and of Central Norseman Gold Corporation. He joined the board of Gold Mines of Australia in 1948. He was appointed the deputy managing director of Western Mining Corporation in 1952 and a director of Broken Hill South in 1956. Frank transferred from Kalgoorlie to Melbourne in 1958.
Frank was elected a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy in 1918 and its President in 1948. He was awarded the Gold Medal of the Institute in 1953. He was a vice president of the Western Australian Chamber of Mines from 1949 to 1959. He was a director of Gold Exploration and Finance Company Ltd from 1947 and of several associated companies including Kalgoorlie Southern and of Great Western Consolidated. He was elected a member of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy of America in 1919.
Frank’s son, Sir Frank Fletcher Espie, also had a distinguished career as a mining engineer.
Frank died on May 9, 1962, aged 71 years, at Epworth Private Hospital, Richmond. He was survived by his wife Laura and their three children.
References:
Denis A Cumming and Richard G Hartley, Westralian Founders of Twentieth Century Mining, Richard G Hartley publisher, 2014.
G Lindesay Clark, Built on Gold – Recollections of Western Mining, Hill of Content Publishing, Melbourne, 1983.
Martin Summons, Mandarins and Mavericks, Hardie Grant, November 2017.
Adelaide Express and Telegraph, 12.12.1905, p. 1.
Adelaide Express and Telegraph, 19.12.1907, p. 4.
Adelaide Advertiser, 28.9.1909, p. 8.
Adelaide Advertiser, 12.12.1913, p. 17.
Adelaide Express and Telegraph, 17.12.1913.
Kalgoorlie Miner, 5.6.1914, p. 2.
Barrier Miner, 8.2.1929, p. 1.
Daily Telegraph Sydney, 27.5.1942, p. 3.
Barrier Miner, 10.7.1943, p. 4.
Gilbert M. Ralph, Espie, Frank Fancett (1890–1962), Australian Dictionary of Biography, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/espie-frank-fancett-10126/text17875, accessed online 19 December 2023.
