Arthur L. Collins

Who was Arthur L. Collins?

Arthur Launcelot Collins was a British metallurgist, mining engineer and mine manager of properties in Mexico and the United States. He was born 8 July 1868 in Truro, Cornwall, England, the son of a prominent mining expert, Joseph Henry Collins, and brother of Henry, George, and Edgar Collins and William Collins, the Bishop of Gibraltar, Spain. Joseph H. Collins founded, and with his sons Henry, Arthur, and George, operated J. H. Collins & Sons, Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, an international mining consulting business headquartered in London, England.

When he was 15 years of age, Arthur Collins traveled with his father and brothers Henry and George to Andalusia, Spain, in the great mining region of Rio Tinto, where Joseph Collins was appointed chief chemist and assayer of the Peña del Hierro copper mine. Under his father, Arthur began his practical work in the laboratory and continued his studies in chemistry and mineralogy, and was soon employed as assayer and underground surveyor by the Peninsular Copper Co., in Southern Spain. Joseph H. Collins and his sons returned to England in 1885, where Arthur was put in charge of an experimental smelting works near Breage, in Cornwall.