Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hatton, Frank
HATTON, FRANK (1861–1883), explorer, second child of Joseph Hatton (1839–1907), journalist, born at Horfield, near Bristol, on 31 Aug. 1861, was educated at Marcq, near Lille, and King's College School. He afterwards attended the Royal School of Mines, South Kensington, of which he became an associate at the age of twenty. He gained a wide acquaintance with science, especially geology and chemistry, by practical work in the laboratory and the field, and had already made an important research on bacteria, when he was appointed mineral explorer to the British North Borneo Company. He left England in August 1881, and arrived at Labuan in October, and on 19 Nov. at Abai, Keppel province. After a two months' expedition to the Sequati and Kurina rivers, he had to recruit his health at Singapore. From March to June 1882 he explored the Labuk river round to Bongon, but found few traces of minerals. From July to October he explored the Kinoram district. After another rest at Singapore he started on 19 Dec. for Sandakan, and journeyed up and down the Kinabatangan until near the end of February, when he reached the Segamah river. On 1 March 1883, while returning from pursuing an elephant, he was killed by the accidental discharge of his rifle, which caught in the thick jungle. His work, so far as it had gone, and his diaries give evidence of high promise as a scientific explorer. He had the true explorer's temperament, power of command, fertility of resource in presence of danger, cool courage and self-control, and was a bright and engaging companion.
Hatton contributed to the ‘Biograph’ about twenty sketches of living men of science; to ‘Bradstreets’ (an American journal) several articles on technical chemistry; to the ‘Whitehall Review’ an article on ‘The Adventures of a Drop of Thames Water;’ and to the ‘Transactions’ of the Chemical Society (1881) two papers ‘On the Action of Bacteria on Various Gases,’ and ‘On the Influence of Intermittent Filtration through Sand and Spongy Iron on Animal and Vegetable Matters dissolved in Water, and the Reduction of Nitrates by savage and other agents.’
[Biographical Sketch, with letters and diaries from North Borneo, by Joseph Hatton, 1886.]