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Calcifer - the First Copper Smelter on the Chillagoe Copperfield

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Calcifer - the First Copper Smelter on the Chillagoe Copperfield AUSTRALASIAN HISTORICAL ARCHAEOLOGY, 13, 1995 Calcifer - the First Copper Smelter on the Chillagoe Copperfield RUTH S. KERR The Calcifer site illustrates the itinerant nature of the North Queensland mining industry. The region's first copper smelter bears no outward sign ofits original metallurgical and commercial purposes. The permanent way ofthe tramway can be easily traced as it was used for ore transport until the closure of the Chillagoe smelters in 1914. Nevertheless the integrity of the site is discernible from the shallow foundations and the inter-relationship ofthe buildings, tramway and town. INTRODUCTION The millIng industry has always been seen as a key development industry for the Australian economy. In Queensland The Chillagoe smelters were one of the largest metallurgical it was the reason for the extensive population increase in the developments in Queensland prior to World War 1. Half a state, especially in central and northern Queensland, attracting million pounds were spent on construction of the railway and miners and tradesmen from the southern mining fields, smelters when only £505 685 worth of ore reserves could be particularly Broken Hill. Immigration from the British coalfields confirmed. Up to World War I, 609 600 tonnes of ore were supplied the underground engine drivers and surface tradesmen, smelted from the Chillagoe and Etheridge fields for the Their eagerness to succeed provided the impetus for new towns production of 23 644 tonnes of copper, 32 266 tonnes of lead, and extended administrative requirements and the railway 135 139 110 grams of silver and 899 132 grams of gold. The system. Townsville, Caims and Cooktown boomed because of geology of the fickle North Queensland veins of rich raw metal decisions to build railways from the coast to the mining fields at and superficial fissures, along with transport costs for hauling Charters Towers, Herberton and Maytown. Mining was always both ore and coke vast distances along the Chillagoe and seen as the salvation of the economy and administrative practice Etheridge railways, devastated the company's finances. was tailored to cause as little economic intrusion as possible. In Investors lost £5 200 000 and never received any dividends. l the 40 years to 1900 when the population of Queensland grew The name, Calcifer, probably first spelt 'Calcufer', is a from 25 000 to 500 000, the gold and mineral production reached combination of the Latin names for limestone, copper and £1 271 544 and the Mining Act 1898 codified the industry's iron. It was coined when John Moffat erected the first copper royalties and land tenure mechanisms. smelters on the Chillagoe field in July 1894. Situated Frontier mining camps were fostered principally by the 13 kilometres east of Chillagoe station homestead, Calcifer anonymous individual prospector, grub-staked by storekeepers. was the first town on the Chillagoe field, 200 kilometres west In this milieu mining camps were a rich and raw social fabric. of Cairns by rail (Fig. I). Cairns Hinterland Mining Region .Mount Carbine AN PACIfiC Dargalong. -,----- -~-, \ "~ Tate Tin Mines o 20 :~~ o 10 I mues ! Fig. 1: Location ofCalcifer and Chillagoe. 18 The industry brought all.cultures together - ~uropean and Asian _ a male coterie of alluvIal and hard rock mmers, entrepreneurs, ENVIRONS OF CALCIFER promoters. sharebrokers and British investors, speculators who n-TREE -1901 - mined the markets, engineers, assayers, smeltermen, teamsters, 1\ N charcoal burners, metallurgists, engine driver~, mine ma?agers timbermen, construction workers, and a few wIves and chIldren. 17 Their enterprise attracted a host of hoteliers and storekeepers, who, respectively, relieved the miner of his. earnings ~d provided a sense of stable society around .the nune, a sItuatIon common to the mdustry throughout the natIon. Only one company, the Irvinebank Mining Company, a private company, managed by a shrewd Scot, John ~?ffat, was HARPER successful in North Queensland through monopolIstIc control GROUP of leases and local batteries. John Moffat's empire spanned the Cairns hinterland and sponsored and financed mines, towns, railways, and social infrastructure of the region from 1880 to 1918. INITIAL EUROPEAN SETTLEMENT William Atherton took up Chillagoe station on the lower Walsh River in 1887 on behalf of his brother, John, who applied formally for the land in April 1888.2 The boom in copper prices stimulated interest in exploring for copper there. Samuel Delaney and Charles Garbutt had been prospecting before John Moffat'of Irvinebank sent his managers, Anthony Linedale and Peter Moffat in June July 1887.3 The Boomerang mine was taken up by Michael Byrnes of Byrnes Brothers, butchers, and registered at Thomborough on 17 July 1888 as a 16.2 hectare Prospecting Protection Area.4 It was soon transferred to Melbourne mining investors, H. Gore and M. Morrey, and miners, John James and party, on 15 August 1888.5 The area Tramway was forfeited at the Herberton Mineral Lands Commissioner's Rai-Nay Road Court on 31 July 1889 for non-fulfilment of labour conditions.6 . Track Scaio:(40ctliiinlJloW11inch) o 1000 Moffat did not obtain control of it until early 1890 amid I I rumours that smelting works would be erectedJ The Boomerang was known as a big lode with 4064 tonnes of ore Fig. 2: The Chillagoe field, 1901. estimated to yield I 016 tonnes of copper. There was a 10.6 metre drive and 4.3 metre winze.8 When company promotion failed to entice South Australian copper and Broken OPERATION OF THE SMELTERS Hill magnates in 1891, Moffat only did limited exploration The Calcifer smelter project was piecemeal and tentative, work on the Boomerang through the subsequent depression.'! using primitive machinery. Moffat purchased the smelting Moffat's intention to erect a smelter on the Chillagoe field plant of the defunct Melbourne company, Silver Mining to treat ore from the Boomerang, Griffith and nearby mines and Smelting Syndicate, at Newellton on the Dry River south became public in May 1894. 10 His aim was to foster further of Herberton. 12 It was advertised in February 1894 as exploration with a view to attracting more capital to the field. II comprising: a 20.3 tonne water jacket furnace,13 one Baker The operation of a new smelter would symbolize a new blower, a stonebreaker (2.7 metres by 1.5 metres), a six horse permanency on the northern fields, persuading miners and power vertical boiler, a multi-tubular boiler (4.3 metres by smelter workers to bring their wives and families to the new 0.9 metres) with complete connections, and a small Blake's frontier towns. The Calcifer smelter commenced in August pump.14 Moffat added other necessary machinery to construct 1894. a cupola or blast furnace type smelter on Furnace Area ISO, Moffat erected a second smelter at Girofla to the west in so the equipment hauled to Calcifer from Newellton and 1896, so controlling the field in readiness for a central smelter. Irvinebank comprised two steam engines (12 horse power), The second discov~ry of the Chillagoe field occurred that year one stonebreaker, one jigger, one iron cupola furnace, one fan when Moffat hosted the visit of three speculative investors­ blast and two saw benches, valued at a total of E2 000. 15 Malcolm McEacharn, Charles W. Chapman, and James Smith Flooded roads south of Irvinebank meant that the carrier, Reid representing Melbourne Collins House Group and White, had to haul boilers, furnace plates and pipes Broken Hill Company capital. A huge smelter and railway 64.5 kilometres further. 16 development resulted from their enthusiasm. The vehicle for Calcifer was Moffat's first copper smelter, and was the floating the Chillagoe leases was the Chillagoe Proprietary only treatment works he ever erected without a dam, as Company which acquired Moffat's leases under an agreement Sm~lter Creek was fed by a spring in the limestone country. signed on 29 October 1897 and the company then negotiated Smelting commenced in August 1894 and in the first five the passage of The Mareeba to Chillagoe Railway Act in months 203 tonnes of copper metal were produced, even November 1897. The Chillagoe Railway and Mines Limited though the works had to stop temporarily because of bushfires was formed on 16 June 1898 to finance the construction of the and lack of feed for the teams. 17 A third of production costs railway and smelters, which were opened in 190 I. This went on transport to Cairns - £2 000 in the first five months. construction phase brought a wave of population to the region, The dry season and the high cost of carriage to Mareeba opening new towns Chillagoe, Mungana, Calcifer - and (£ 12 per ton) forced the smelter to close temporarily every mining and construction camps at Redcap, Zillmanton, year. 19 Sixteen to 20 per cent copper from surface shows RUddygore, Ti Tree, and Otho (Fig. 2). warranted perseverance so Moffat installed four more pumps, 19 another stonebreaker and a jigger in 1895.20 Blast furnaces ESTABLISHMENT OF THE TOWN were ungainly in their height, and operated at dangerously hot temperatures, often cracking and almost melting the bricks.2l The fumes of Moffat's first copper smelter symbolised the The smelter generally ran roughly in 1895, producing rich promise of pennanency for the field. The Calcifer mining camp slag, yielding 279 tonnes of copper, valued at £9625.22 In spread out on the flat below Boomerang mine beside an oasis of the first two and a half years the Calcifer smelter treated spring water (Fig. 3). The number of miners, smeltermen, 4 183 tonnes of copper ore yielding 831 tonnes of copper tradesmen, publicans and storekeepers totalled 40, matte valued at £29 795 (Table 1). In addition, transport costs accompanied by 45 women and children from New South swallowed one third of the income, and ticks and bushfires Wales mining fields,29 along with 20 Chinese "Johns" ravaged the bullocks and their feed.
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