ABSTRACT
T.A. Rickard, editor of Mining Magazine, in 1919 hailed Alfred Chester Beatty (1875-1968) as ‘one of the most forceful of the engineer-financier type of men now engaged in mining speculation’.1 He went on to characterize Beatty as a leading member of the ‘New Group’ of entrepreneurs that were risking their professional reputations to curb fraud and abuse in the London stock market’s mineral sector. The description was perceptive, but incomplete, for not only did Beatty exemplify those leading the transition from speculative promotion to the rational management of fully operational mines in the first half of the century, but he was also a primary contributor to the rise of multinational enterprise in the mining industry of the twentieth century.
