Mr. Walter J. Stanford , B.A., B.E., formerly General Manager, Superintendent, and Attorney in charge of the Premier mine, was born at Monkstown, County Dublin, Ireland, in 1864. He is the third son of Mr. I. W. Stanford, C.E., and was educated at Uppingham School, Rutland, England, afterwards entering Trinity College, Dublin, where he took his degrees of B.A. and B.E. in 1886. Mr. Stanford was employed by his father on the Rathmines waterworks, near Dublin, and subsequently by the Irish Government on the surveys for improving the drainage of the Barrow and Shannon rivers. He studied assaying in London and qualified as a practical assayer. In 1890, he was appointed Assistant Manager and Assayer to the Silate River Gold Mining Company in the Transvaal, where he remained until November, 1892; and was appointed general manager of the Premier mine at Macetown in 1893. He is an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers, and of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, London, and is member of the New Zealand Institute of Mining Engineers. He took an active interest in the Arrow Hospital, of which he was chairman, and was also president of the Arrow Cricket Club. Mr. Stanford was married in 1805 to Ruby, daughter of the late Mr. Charles Belaney, of County Westmeath, Ireland, and has one daughter. He is now (1905) in Rhodesia, in the employment of an exploration company, and left Macetown in 1899.