Hector Stewart
STEWART, Hector MLC, MCE, MAusIMM, AMIEAust. (1875-1931)
Born at Windsor in Victoria, Stewart was educated at Wesley College, the Ballarat School of Mines, and Melbourne University from which he graduated with a degree in mining engineering. He commenced his mining career in 1894 by working at Long Tunnel Mg Co. at Walhalla and then in South Africa in the Transvaal mining industry. He returned to Victoria in 1896 where he was manager of an ore treatment plant. He upgraded his mining degree by thesis in 1898 to a Masters degree in civil engineering.
By 1898 he had moved to Tasmania where he was appointed assayer and assistant engineer at the Lyell Tharsis Mg Co. Mining activities at Mt Lyell were then in the boom period with forty mining companies working in the district. In 1899 the Lyell Tharsis Mg Co. became the second company on the minefield to pay a dividend as it supplied siliceous ore for the copper smelters of Mt Lyell Mg Co.
Stewart visited Western Australia in 1898 and moved there in the following year. He married in Victoria in 1900 and moved to Britain to do postgraduate studies into economic geology at Glasgow University (1901). He then returned to Western Australia where he commenced practice as a consulting engineer and arbitrator. He also purchased a wool growing property at Wagin which he upgraded to a merino stud after 1924.
In 1916 he was the Commissioner appointed by the WA Government to enquire into coal mining at Collie. In the following year, following a by election, he became a Country Party Member of the Legislative Council representing South East Province, a seat which he held until 1931. In 1930 he was a member of the parliamentary enquiry into the Main Roads Act. Shortly afterwards he retired from his engineering practice.
Stewart was elected a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining Engineers in 1902 and was a foundation member of the Institution of Engineers, Australia in 1919. He was the chairman of directors of Primary Newspapers Co and was active in the establishment of Wagin Farmers Co operative Co.
References:
RC Collie Coal Industry' V&P WA 1916 17;
MER Jan 1918, p.126;
FJA 1927 28, p.242;
WAust 10 Aug1931;
Obit' JIEAust 5, 1933, p.33;
ArcAusMM;
Black/Bolton 2, p.186;
Blainey. Lyell pp.138 39
