# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Bauerman, Hilary

​BAUERMAN, HILARY (1835–1909), metallurgist, mineralogist and geologist, born in London on 16 March 1835, was younger son, in the family of two sons and one daughter, of Hilary John Bauerman by his wife Anna Hudina Rosetta, daughter of Dr. Wychers. His parents migrated from Emden, in Hesse Cassel, to London in August 1829. On 6 Nov. 1851 Hilary was entered as one of the seven original students of the Government School of Mines at Jermyn Street. This school became in 1862 the ‘Royal School of Mines,’ and the degree of associate of the Royal School of Mines was then conferred on Bauerman. In 1853 he went to the Bergakademie at Freiburg in Saxony to complete his studies, and on his return to England in 1855 he was appointed an assistant geologist to the Geological Survey of the United Kingdom. In 1858 he went to Canada as geologist to the North American boundary commission, and after the completion of its labours in 1863 he was intermittently engaged for many years in searching for mineral deposits and surveying mining properties in various parts of the world, chiefly by private persons or by companies, but also by the Indian and Egyptian governments (1867–9). This exploratory work carried him to the following countries: Sweden and Lapland in 1864, Michigan in 1865, Labrador in 1866, Arabia, the shores of the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden in 1867–9, Savoy in 1870, Missouri in 1871, Bengal, Borar and Kumaon in 1872–3, Northern Peru in 1874, Murcia and Granada in 1876, Asia Minor in 1878, N. and S. Carolina, Colorado and Mexico in 1881, Brazil in 1883, Arizona in 1884, Cyprus and Portugal in 1888.
Meanwhile he was also engaged in making his chief contributions to technical and scientific literature. His well-known work on the ‘Metallurgy of Iron’ was published in 1868, and reached its sixth and last edition in 1890. Of his two text-books on mineralogy, ‘Systematic Mineralogy’ came out in 1881 and ‘Descriptive Mineralogy’ in 1884. Lastly, in 1887 he collaborated with J. A. Phillips in revising and enlarging the latter's ‘Elements of Metallurgy,’ which was originally published in 1874 (3rd edit. 1891).
In his later years Bauerman devoted himself mainly to teaching. In 1874 he first acted as an examiner of the science and art department. In 1883 he was lecturer in metallurgy at Firth College, Sheffield. In 1888 he succeeded Dr. John Percy [q. v.] as professor of metallurgy at the Ordnance College, Woolwich. He retired from the post in 1906, keenly interesting himself until his death in the developments of metallurgy and mining. Despite partial deafness, which increased with his years, his prodigious memory and his genial manner made him a highly successful teacher. He was an indefatigable and versatile worker, his favourite hobbies in later years being crystallography and geometry. He died, unmarried, at Balham on 5 Dec. 1909, and was cremated at Brookwood. By his will, after payment of bequests and subject to the lapse of two lives, the income from the residue of his property of 12,000l. was devoted to the encouragement of the study of mineralogical science in connection with the Royal School of Mines.
Bauerman wrote much for the technical journals, and occasionally contributed papers to the transactions of the Geological Society, the Iron and Steel Institute, and other learned societies. He was a fellow, and for some time a vice-president, of the Geological Society; an associate member of the Institute of Civil Engineers, by which he was awarded the Howard prize in 1897; an honorary member of the Iron and Steel Institute, and also of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy, which awarded him its gold medal in 1906 in recognition of his many services in the advancement of metallurgical science.
T. K. R.