Savannah Johnson Speak (4 September 1868 – 29 December 1929) was an English

mining engineer Mining engineering is the extraction of minerals from the ground. It is associated with many other disciplines, such as mineral processing, exploration, excavation, geology, metallurgy, geotechnical engineering and surveying. A mining engineer m ...

and

metallurgist Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the ...

. He received a technical education at the Yorkshire College and the Royal School of Mines after which he worked in mining around the world and lectured in metallurgy at the University of Sydney. He was in business as a consultant engineer in London and was president of the

Institution of Mining and Metallurgy The Institution of Mining and Metallurgy (IMM) was a British research institution, founded in 1892. Members of the Institution used the post-nominals MIMM. In 2002, it merged with The Institute of Materials (IOM) to form the Institute of Materials, ...

from 1922-23.

Early life

Savannah Johnson Speak was born on 4 September 1868 at East Bierley, Yorkshire, to Savannah Speak and his wife Annie. His father was a "cotton warp dresser". He was schooled at

Saltaire Saltaire is a Victorian model village near Shipley, West Yorkshire, England, situated between the River Aire, the railway, and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal. Salts Mill and the houses were built by Titus Salt between 1851 and 1871 to allo ...

1922 Who's Who In Engineering: Name S.
Grace's Guide to British Industrial History. Retrieved 4 June 2017. and received his advanced education at the

Yorkshire College The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

(1886–89) which specialised in scientific and technical subjects such as mining and geology and eventually was adsorbed into the

University of Leeds The University of Leeds is a public research university in Leeds, West Yorkshire, England. It was established in 1874 as the Yorkshire College of Science. In 1884, it merged with the Leeds School of Medicine (established 1831) and was renamed Y ...

. This was followed by study at the

Royal School of Mines The Royal School of Mines comprises the departments of Earth Science and Engineering, and Materials at Imperial College London. The Centre for Advanced Structural Ceramics and parts of the London Centre for Nanotechnology and Department of Bioe ...

.''Who's Who in Engineering, Volume 1''. John W. Leonard Corporation, New York, 1922. p. 1187.

Career

Speak worked in

Transvaal Transvaal is a historical geographic term associated with land north of (''i.e.'', beyond) the Vaal River in South Africa. A number of states and administrative divisions have carried the name ''Transvaal''. * South African Republic (1856–1902; ...

in 1890 and in

German South West Africa German South West Africa () was a colony of the German Empire from 1884 until 1915, though Germany did not officially recognise its loss of this territory until the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. German rule over this territory was punctuated by ...

in 1891. He was lecturer in metallurgy at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public university, public research university in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania. One of Australia's six sandstone universities, it was one of the ...

from 1892 to 1894. He was a metallurgist at the Geldenhuis Deep Gold Mine, Johannesburg, in 1895-97 and worked in the

Dutch East Indies The Dutch East Indies, also known as the Netherlands East Indies (; ), was a Dutch Empire, Dutch colony with territory mostly comprising the modern state of Indonesia, which Proclamation of Indonesian Independence, declared independence on 17 Au ...

1898-99. He also worked in West Africa, Celebes, Korea, British Columbia, Siberia, Argentina, and Northern Rhodesia. From 1905, Speak was a consulting engineer, practicing from London Wall Buildings, and became a partner in the firm of Hooper, Speak & Co. He was president of the

from 1922-23.'' Transactions of the Institution of Mining & Metallurgy'', Volume 41 (1931), p. xxxix.

Later life

In the 1920s, Speak was resident at Monkenhurst, New Barnet, on the edge of

Monken Hadley Common Monken Hadley Common lies within the Monken Hadley Conservation Area, and is listed as a “Site of Nature Conservation Interest, Site of Borough Importance for Nature Conservation, Grade I,” by the London Borough of Barnet. It is registered c ...

. He died on 29 December 1929 at

Dixton Dixton () is a small village located north east of Monmouth, on the banks of the River Wye, in Monmouthshire, south east Wales. The parish originally comprised the two manors of Dixton Newton and Hadnock, Dixton Hadnock, on either side of the r ...

, Hadley Common, leaving an estate of £14,439. His executors were Ethel Maud Speak, widow, and William Henry Speak, merchant.Probate Calendar 1930, p. 415.
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Speak, Savannah 1868 births 1929 deaths English mining engineers English metallurgists People from Birkenshaw, West Yorkshire Academic staff of the University of Sydney