H. S. REXWORTHY.
GENERAL MANAGER- JOSHUA HENDY IRON WORKS, SUNNYVALE
Bio-Sawyers
SURNAMES: SIBREE, ROBERTS
—
Prominent among the highly-trained captains of industry who have
contributed much toward bringing California into such a front line
among her sister commonwealths that she is now everywhere recognized as
the Golden State, is undoubtedly H. S. Rexworthy, the capable general
superintendent of the Joshua Hendy Iron Works at Sunnyvale, who has had
an exceptionally varied and rich experience in the building of immense
engines, heavy mining machinery and massive gates such as are used in
the large irrigation projects of the Turlock Irrigation Company and
extensive hydro-electric undertakings in California and the Pacific
West. He was born in Gloucestershire, England, on December 2, 1873, the
only son of Cornish parents and a descendant, on his mother's side of
John Sibree, a near relative to the noted African explorer of the same
name.
The mother is still living, in England, at the age of seventy-eight;
and there are three sisters. Mr. Rexworthy was educated at the famous
Bristol Grammar School with its delightful hillside environments at
Bristol; later he went to London and there studied the general
sciences, and when he left the halls and lawns of those favored
institutions to which so many of England's great men had gone as
students, he was eighteen years of age and ready for a tussle with the
world. He took up mechanical work under the widely-known John McIntire,
the celebrated naval architect of Glasgow, and after two years'
preceptorship, he was made his assistant. He went as a pupil to the
East Ferry Company at Millwa, near London and worked there for a number
of years, and then he became assistant manager.
During that time Mr. Rexworthy was married to Miss Irene Roberts, a
daughter of Edward Roberts, I. S. 0. and F. R. A. S., an extremely
clever mathematician who has, for many years, been retained as the
chief assistant in the British Government's Nautical Almanac's office,
where he is known as one of the world's greatest authorities on tides.
Mr. Rexworthy then traveled as engineer for the Murex Company, and
after that he took up mining, and he made the first installation in the
process for handling carbonate ores, silver, lead and gold. Next he
made his way to Northern Siberia and became an expert for the Bogolosky
Company, probably the largest gold and silver-mining company in the
world, owning and controlling some 4,000 square miles of auriferous
territory and employing 400,000 men. About this time the great World
War broke forth, and Mr. Rex worthy was recalled to his native land for
war purposes, and after that he was assigned to the task of perfecting
the process of tungsten alloy. After ten months in England, he was sent
to California to superintend a process for the recovery of base metals
and later he became superintendent of the Lane Mines, for the Darwin
Corporation at Darwin, Inyo County.
He had first set foot on American soil at New York in November, 1914,
and from there he proceeded to the Pacific Coast and Mountain states,
and he was at San Francisco when he was called to England to process
tungsten steel. Eventually, he came from Inyo County to Sunnyvale,
where he was appointed chief engineer. He has always been and still is
a hard worker, putting in from ten to twelve hours a day. He has
displayed exceptional natural and developed ability, and has risen to
eminence in the world of mechanism. He is a member of the Sunnyvale
Chamber of Commerce, and it goes without saying that he worthily
represents the great iron works elsewhere described.
Mr. and Mrs. Rexworthy have one child, a son, Edward. They have built a
fine residence on Sunnyvale Avenue, in Sunnyvale, and as members of the
Episcopal Church they enter heartily into the religious, civic and
social life of their adopted town. Mr. Rexworthy is a member of the
Institute of Mechanical Engineers of England, and his fame as a leader
of scientific attainment in the industrial field has gone abroad
through two continents.
SANTA CLARA COUNTY BIOGRAPHY PROJECT
SANTA CLARA COUNTY The Valley of Heart's Delight