Sir Alfred Chester Beatty, an American born in New York City and a graduate of Columbia School of Mines, was one of the world’s leading mining entrepreneurs during the first half of the 20th Century. Early in his career, Chester Beatty established himself in the American West as an expert evaluator of mining properties. He drew on this expertise during the 1920s to build Selection Trust into one of the world’s great mining companies.
In 1903, Chester Beatty was hand-picked by John Hays Hammond to be his chief aide in Guggenheim Exploration, acquiring and developing mining properties in North and South America for the Guggenheim mining and smelting empire. Most notably, Beatty led a team of 16 engineers over a period of seven months, evaluating Daniel Jackling’s Bingham Canyon, Utah property. Beatty’s team drove tunnels, blasted tons of rock, and took thousands of samples. His calculations confirmed Jackling’s contention that large-scale surface mining could be applied to the deposit to produce copper at low cost. On Hammond and Beatty’s joint recommendation, the Guggenheims took a one-quarter interest in the Bingham Canyon property and provided much needed capital for its development. Bingham Canyon has since produced more than 10 million tons of copper and will continue to produce far into the 21st Century.
In 1913, Chester Beatty transferred his activities to London, England, where he founded Selection Trust. Under Beatty’s guidance, Selection Trust became a driving force in developing the rich copper mines of Northern Rhodesia’s (now Zambia’s) Copperbelt, as well as diamond mines in west Africa, the Trepca lead-zinc mines in Serbia, and the Tetiuhe lead-zinc mine in Russian Siberia. On the Copperbelt, Selection Trust developed the Roan Antelope and Mufulira mines into two of the world’s great copper producers.
A rivalry between Selection Trust and Anglo American, one of the South African-based Oppenheimer companies, developed on the Copperbelt during the 1920s. Both companies achieved notable successes, and copper production from Copperbelt mines boomed. In combination with production from mines across the border in Katanga province of the Congo, copper production from central Africa grew to rival that of the southwestern United States and Chile. Chester Beatty eventually sold his Copperbelt interests to American Metal Company (later to become AMAX and still later a part of Cyprus Amax Minerals Company), assuring for many years an American presence in central African copper production.
During World War II, Chester Beatty became one of Winston Churchill’s backroom advisers on raw materials supply. He was also the driving force behind the development of the Northover gun, the artillery of the Home Guard. In 1954, he was knighted. In 1956, Sir Alfred Chester Beatty bequeathed his library—22,000 manuscripts, rare books, miniature paintings, and art objects—to the Irish nation.
