Henry James Evans

Who was Henry James Evans?

Henry James Evans, was the leading exploration geologist and discoverer of the immense bauxite deposits near Weipa, on the west coast of Cape York Peninsula in northern Queensland, Australia.

Henry Evans was born on 7 November, 1912, in Greymouth, a mining centre on the west coast of the South Island of New Zealand. After graduating from high school he studied geology at the Reefton School of Mines. After working evaluating gold dredging areas on the west coast and later for a tin mining company, he joined New Zealand Petroleum as senior geologist in 1938 and spent six years with them before spending most of 1945 assessing the resources of the Greymouth Coal Basin with the New Zealand Geological Survey.

In 1946 he moved to Australia joining the Zinc Corporation and worked for them looking for oil, gas in Australia. uranium at Rum Jungle, and for potash in the U.K.

In 1955, he was asked to lead a group of American oil explorers to Cape York Peninsula, Sir Maurice Mawby suggested he should also search other minerals such as phosphate or bauxite.