Captain John M.Roger

John Taylor was a man of dynamism and zeal! He believed that, success can be achieved only by determined and team spirit. He had with him a number of most efficient men who would never sore at failures. John Taylor sent Capt. Bell Davies to Kolar field and on his report acted further. He was the first technical person on the field from M/s John Taylor & sons firm. The other, Capt. John M. Roger,—the first operating engineer sent by John Taylor started stirring the ground with great hopes of reward! This firm bought lands from Gen. Beresford and the Gold Fields of Mysore Ltd. After the formation of Mysore Gold Mining Company on 6-7—1880, Captain Roger sank a trial pit called ‘Maarikuppam pit’ at the jungle (Later, the present day Mysore mine mill complex at Maarikuppam was established near that pit) On reaching a solid rock at a depth of six metres, there was a heavy upsurge of water and work was halted. After dewatering this pit, a cross cut in the westerly direction was made for about five metres from the bottom with the aim of reaching a lode. At that distance, a vein of 0.9 metre wide was met- with in the footwall as part of the lode in the hanging wall had already been mined out by the ancients. Encouraged by this discovery, a few other shafts named after some of the share-holders of the firm were sunk by Roger since 1881. These shafts were: The Taylor’s, Hale’s, Tennant’s, Scovell’s, Webb’s, Fitzmaurice shafts etc. Later at a depth of 18 metres in the Taylor’s shaft a cross cut towards east was driven to get the western cross cut of Maarikuppam pit connected. It was a terrible experience to Roger during the infancy of the industry when he had to combat many a challenges posed by nature to man and his technology. These failures of Roger were itself a great success to John Taylor. Few successes and many a failures on this field made Capt.Roger only to hope for ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, which was demonstrated by his immediate successor—‘The Dare Devil’.