Arthur Treadgold, (1869-1951)

The appropriately named Arthur Newton Christian Treadgold was in the right place at the right time to become very rich indeed.

He was head boy at the King’s School and played football for Grantham FC, but moved after winning a scholarship to Oxford where he gained an MA.

It was as assistant master at Bath College he travelled to Canada in 1897, when the great trek north to the Yukon for gold began.

He followed as a digger – very successfully.

His particular notability and cause of success in the Yukon was the organizing of a dredging company which was able to scoop large quantities of river bottom sand and then process it to remove gold.

This enterprise was first capitalized with English investment. Under the English ownership Treadgold was Managing Director.

In an additional round of capitalization money was raised from a large American mining company. This American company became majority shareholder and removed Treadgold from office as Managing Director.

The last 17 years of his life was spent in an unsuccessful litigation against the mining company of which he was former president. He was said at one time to be worth a quarter-of-a-million pounds.

He died on a visit to London when he fell from a bus in Fleet Street.

Compiled with the assistance of Richard Bond