END OF A MINE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 48, Issue 2818, 5 October 1938, Page 3

END OF A MINE

BROKEN HILL CLOSES ROMANCE OF 55 YEARS SYNDICATE OF SEVEN One day, about 55 years ago, a boundary-rider on a western sheep station rode back to his hut with some samples of mineralised rock in his pocket. As he ambled across his wilderness of saltbush he kept thinking of those fragments and of the great ride of broken outcrop from which he had knocked them, writes Arthur Russell in the Sydney Morning Herald. They might be tin ore, he thought.

Charles Rasp, the rider, was wrong: those rock fragments were not tin ore; they were something even better. They were manganese of silverlead.

Rasp knew nothing about mining or minerals. But he had faith, and that faith was to carry him on. Back to that broken hill he rode and staked out 40 acres. Yes, we may well gasp and wonder, now. The fact was, Rasp had driven his pegs into the wealth of Croesus. Beneath that stark, waterless ridge of the Barrier Range lay the richest body of silver-lead ore the world has ever known. A Station Syndicate But neither he nor anyone else was to know that yet. Indeed, the unparalleled wealth of the Broken Hill field was to lie undreamed of and unknown to the world for many years to come. But Rasp’s imagination had been fired. He determined to seek the co-operation of George McCulloch, the manager of the station on which he worked. Together they thought out means and ways. The find looked promising. It was worth a venture. Why not risk it?

Five of McCulloch’s station men decided to join them. They would not only develop the claim already pegged by Rasp, but they would also stake out the adjoining six blocks. And down below those blocks dreamed of but yet unknown by them lay the great ore bodies. Think of it. The Fates, as they often are, were on the side of the venturous. The names of the seven men were:—George McCulloch, station manager; Charles Rasp, boundary-rider; George Urquhart, sheep overseer; G. A. M. Lind, station book-keeper; Philip Charley, jackaroo; David James, contractor and owner of bullock teams; James Poole, bullock-driver and David James’s offsider. Thus was formed the now famous Broken Hill Syndicate, than which probably no more successful enterprise has ever been launched in the world of industry.

The original seven did not all go on with the venture. The first to draw out was Lind, and his interest was taken over by McCulloch and Rasp. Then Urquhart gave up, and his shares were acquired by S. J. Hawkins, the station carpenter. Meantime Philip Charley had sold one of his shares to W. Jamieson, who also secured one share each from Rasp and David James respectively, his three shares costing him in all £320. Jamieson parted with one of these shares to J. Dalglish for £llO, and the other he sold to H. F. C. Keats for £2OO. Dalglish held his share till his death, when it went to W. C. Dalglish, while Keats sold his to W. R. Wilson for £2OOO.

And now, on a January day of 1885, see young Phillip Charley, back from a holiday in Melbourne, riding over the “broken hill” that he might note the progress made at “the working’s” since his last visit. Suddenly his eyes light upon some grey specks in the rock. Could they be chlorides? Back to the homestead he races with his specimens.

Yes’, they are chlorides all right. Assays of from 600 oz. to 800 oz. of silver to the ton send the hopes of the syndicate soaring. But to work those chlorides they must have big capital. They decide to float the syndicate into a limited company. Jamieson, Bowes, Kelly and Wilson draw up the pi*ospectus. The share list is' opened simultaneously in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, and Silverton; it opens on June 29, 1885, closes on July 6, 1885, and the new company is registered in Melbourne on August I'3 following. The Broken Hill Proprietary Company, Limited, had embarked on the first stage of its amazing career. For the next 27 years the company worked the mine on “the hill” with undiminished vigour—a record in which magnificent enterprise, colossal production, fire-fighting, industrial strife and scientific management are weaved in a romantic, if sometimes stressful, web of industry. That stage would loom large in any book written by the company. But in 1912 the great ore bodies gave

signs that they would one day come to an end. Ways and means for the protection of the future “life” of the company and its shareholders would have to be sought.

They were found primarily in the rich iron ore deposits of South Australia. Vast plants at Newcastle and Port Kembla were assembled. The production of iron and steel took precedence over silver and lead and zinc. The steel industry of Australia had begun.

That is the position to-day, except that the old mine on the “broken hill” is near its ending. In November, according to a report of the company just issued, the skips on the old B.H.P. mine at Broken Hill will have drawn their last lading. The great ore bodies are worked out. So the story of the old B.H.P. of the silver-lead days draws to a close. But years ago a new B.H.P. grew up within it —the great steel company of to-day. The B.H.P. has long been a powerful factor in the industrial advancement of Australia. To-day it is helping to shape a nation.