Charles Butters

Charles Butters was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, on August 10, 1854. After graduating from the University of California he worked as a metallurgist in mines in the Western United States.[1]

Butters traveled to the Transvaal in 1890 to construct a chlorination plant to treat ore at the Robinson Gold Mine for Hermann Eckstein & Company.[1] Whilst in southern Africa he pioneered the use of the gold cyanidation process for extracting gold from low grade ore.[1] This revolutionised gold mining in Witwatersrand as it was much more efficient than the vanning and shaking table methods and allowed the exploitation of many deposits previously ruled out as being too low in yield. Butters also developed the Butters and Meins' Mechanical Distributor which removed slime from sand tailings to allow them to be treated by cyanide process, further improving efficiencies. By 1894 Butters was experimenting with the treatment of the slime with lime and in settlement tanks to allow residual gold to be extracted.[2] Butters left Hermann Eckstein & Company in 1894 to become a founder of the Rand Central Ore Reduction Company. He joined the Johannesburg Reform Committee in 1895 and at the end of that year took part in the Jameson Raid. After the raid he was arrested, sentenced as an accomplice and fined $2,000.[1]

Butters returned to the United States in 1898 and ran his own firm Chas. Butters & Co Ltd.[3][1] He was described as having "gained a magnificent fortune" by 1907 by which point one of his gold mines his company purchased for $40,000 cash had generated $3 million in dividends, with a further $3 million of ore identified in the mine.[4] Butters owned a large estate in Rockridge, Oakland, California, and, in 1911, opposed the extension of the Oakland, Antioch and Eastern Railroad, which passed by his estate and he considered to be a nuisance.[5]

In 1920 Butters proposed establishing mints in Mexico to produce silver coinage which would be used to pay taxes to the Mexican government and the salaries of mine employees. This scheme, which came to be known as the Butters Plan, would reduce the supply of silver bullion, causing an increase in price, and allow mines to purchase goods with coin for export. The bullion had previously been transported to India and China where it was sold at a fixed price under the Pittman Act. Butters considered the previous arrangement served to the benefit of the British government, who controlled the eastern silver trade, at the expense of his mines.[6] In 1927 Butters risked a firing squad when he took steps to protect his mines in Nicaragua during the civil war.[7]

Butters was an associate member of the Institution of Civil Engineers and, in 1931, received a medal from the Mining and Metallurgical Society of Freiburg, Germany for his research work.[7][2] Butters was married to Jessie Butters and died in Berkeley, California, on November 27, 1933.[1][8] His papers are held in the archive of the University of California, Berkeley Libraries.[8]