A MAN from the region who became a world figure in the metal mining industry has died at his home in the US.

Dr Donald Wilkinson ended a lifetime’s career as a metallurgist as president of the huge Amax Magnesium company in Salt Lake City, Utah.

He died aged 80 in River Ridge, Louisiana, after a long illness and leaves wife, Patricia, and two daughters, Victoria and Louise. He also leaves a brother, Matthew, who is a leading Scottish surgeon.

Dr Wilkinson was born in Seymour Street, Bishop Auckland, but the family later moved to a larger house in Etherley Lane after his father, Stanley, founded Wilkinson department store in the Newgate Street, in the town.

The store closed in the early Eighties. After attending King James I Grammar School, he graduated as an associate of the Royal School of Mining from Imperial College, London.

He then gave two years of National Service in the Army before starting his career as a metallurgist in Peru.

It was there he married Patricia, who he met when she taught at Bishop Barrington Secondary School, Bishop Auckland.

In 1956, they moved to Pennsylvania and later New Jersey, where Dr Wilkinson continued his metals research.

He later worked as technical director for leading Canadian mining firm CCNR, in Ontario, before becoming manager of a nickel refining plant in Braithwaite, Louisiana.

It was then he was appointed president of Amax Magnesium, a position he held until his retirement 18 years ago.

He was also president of Magcorp, another Louisiana mining business, and vicepresident of the International Magnesium Association.

His daughter, Dr Victoria Sabrio, who works in New Orleans, said: “My father’s work was his life.

“He was a very, very private man, whose philosophy was not to display any of the brashness of his American contemporaries, but he was also a devoted father and husband.”

Mrs Wilkinson described her husband’s humble beginnings in the small house in Seymour Street.

She said: “But I can remember the family moving to a posher, larger house when they started the department store.”

Away from work, they both loved to travel, but never returned to Bishop Auckland once Dr Wilkinson’s parents died.