Great Cobar mine was a copper mine, located at Cobar, New South Wales, Australia, which also produced significant amounts of gold and silver. It operated between 1871 and 1919. Over that period, it was operated by five entities; Cobar Copper Mining Company (1871–1875), Great Cobar Copper-Mining Company (1876–1889), Great Cobar Mining Syndicate (1894–1906), Great Cobar Limited (1906–1914), and finally the receiver representing the debentures holders of Great Cobar Limited (1915–1919). Its operations included mines and smelters at Cobar, an electrolytic copper refinery, coal mine and coke works at Lithgow, and a coal mine and coke works at Rix's Creek near Singleton.
Origins
Discovery of the lode In the winter of 1870, three well and bore sinkers, two Danes, Thomas Hartman and Charles Campbell (a.k.a. Kempf) and a Scotsman, George Samson Gibb, with two Aboriginal guides, 'Boney' and 'Frank', were heading south, following a route between waterholes that were known to the guides. Camping overnight at the Kuppar waterhole, 100 miles south of Bourke, they noticed blue and green streaks in rocks near the waterhole.
The area now known as Cobar lies on the traditional lands of the Wangaaypuwan-speaking people (also known as Wangaibon) of the Ngiyampaa. According to a statement made by Thomas Hartman, in 1899, the site of the discovery was a campsite for local people, who used the blue and green minerals as a body paint.
They took samples from an outcrop around 65 feet wide, later identified as the Great Cobar lode, and continued on their way. At Gilgunnia, they showed the samples to Sidwell Kruge—a woman of Cornish origin, previously residing in the copper-mining town of Burra—who identified the samples as ores containing copper. Sidwell's husband, Henry Kruge, smelted some of the ore samples in a blacksmith's forge to prove beyond doubt that the ore contained copper.
On 16 September 1870, reports of the discovery were made by the Bourke correspondent of the Dubbo Dispatch. The source was Charles Campbell, who had arrived in Bourke from the Lachlan, travelling via the site of the copper deposit, not yet known as Cobar. He brought ore samples to Bourke. One specimen of ore, "with the aid of a frying pan and the forge bellows, we roughly smelted, and procured an abundance of copper". Campbell already had men at the site "securing water". At Bourke, others became involved, notably a Bourke businessman, Joseph Becker. On 6 October 1870, 40 acres of land, which included the outcrop, was taken up in the names of Campbell, Hartman, Gibb, and Becker.
After the discovery - Campbell, Hartman, and Gibb None of the discoverers of the copper lode at Cobar made large fortunes from it.
George Samson Gibb retained a share in the mine, but died at Bourke in December 1875.
Charles Campbell seems to have sold his share early, since his name is absent from the 1872 list of shareholders. By mid 1874, he was keeping an inn, at Gongolgon, on the Bogan River; before the direct road from Bourke to Cobar was opened, it was a stopping place on a longer but better-watered route. He died at Parramatta, in June 1883.
Thomas Hartman sold his share in the Cobar mine to Joseph Becker in 1872. He found copper carbonate near Girilambone Hill, north-west of Nyngan, in 1875. In 1879, Hartman, Charles Campbell, and two others took out a mineral claim there. However, their claim was disputed and withdrawn after Hartman and Campbell concluded that it was only a shallow deposit. In March 1881, the Girilambone Copper Mining Company Ltd was formed with a nominal capital of £75,000 in £100 shares. Its directors included Russell Barton, but Hartman and Campbell were not involved. By early 1882, there was already a mining village, known as Girilambone, near the copper mine, and from late 1882, a copper smelter. Hartman became a hotel keeper at Girilambone. He lived there for many years, but subsequently moved to Sydney, where he died seven months later, in June 1904.
Thomas Hartman, the last survivor of the trio, applied for and obtained a payment from the NSW Government in 1899 as recognition of his being the discoverer of copper ore at both Cobar and Girilambone. In his narrative of the time, the role of Campbell and Gibb in the Cobar discovery was given minimal weight.
Cobar Copper Mining Company (1871–1875) The three white discoverers were some of the first owners of the mine, along with four men from Bourke, Joseph Becker, William Bradley, Russell Barton, and James Smith. They called their new venture, Cobar Copper Mining Company. Becker applied to register the new company, with 20,000 £1 shares, on 1 July 1872. Although Becker and Bradley retained the largest shareholdings in the new company, there were 69 original shareholders, mostly from the region around Bourke. The original shareholders included all the first owners, except two; Thomas Hartman, who had sold his share to Becker, and Charles Campbell, whose name is absent from the first list of shareholders and, presumably, had also sold his share in the mine.
Thomas Lean, an experienced mine captain from South Australia's 'copper triangle', was employed to manage the venture. Impressed with the deposit, Lean brought six experienced copper miners from South Australia and sunk two shafts (Becker's shaft and Barton's shaft, 600 feet to the south). Lean also had a small shareholding at the time that the company was registered in 1872.
In mid-1872, the workings were shallow, only 7 fathoms (42 feet down), and the copper ores being mined were mainly copper oxides and copper carbonates. Rich ore (30% copper) was taken to Louth to await transport by riverboat, to smelters in South Australia, when the water depth of the Darling River allowed it. Lower-grade ore (15% copper) was stockpiled at the mine, pending the erection of smelters. Six reverberatory furnaces were constructed, two in 1875 and another four in 1876.
After the initial discovery, from 1870 to 1873, other prospectors made other claims in the area. These included the deposits that became the North Cobar and South Cobar mines, on the same line of lode as the Cobar mine, as well as a deposit further to the north, the CSA mine, and deposits to the south in the area that would later become Wrightville. The township of Cobar began to become a more permanent settlement.
Thomas Lean Thomas Lean (1819–1901), known as Captain Thomas Lean, was born at Bere Alston, Devon, of Cornish ancestry. In 1840, he settled in South Australia, where his father, Joseph Lean, took a position as a mine manager.
Thomas Lean made his career in mining, beginning work as a boy in copper, lead, and silver mines in Cornwall. Before coming to Cobar, he had extensive mine management experience in South Australia's copper mines and had also managed quartz reef gold mining at Steglitz in Victoria.
He became the manager of the Cobar Copper Mine in 1871 and held the position until around 1874. He had travelled to Cobar, first on a river paddle steamer, 'Princess Royal', only as far as Menindee, due to the low water level, and then by stagecoach. Upon arrival in Cobar, he realised the inherent difficulties of the location, and was important in opening the road from Cobar to the river port of Bourke on Darling River.
Thomas Lean remained in the Cobar area for the rest of his life. He became a long-serving Justice of the Peace. He remained involved in mines in the Cobar region, including being a director of the Occidental gold mine at Wrightville and the Mount Drysdale and Eldorado gold mines at Mount Drysdale. With his son-in-law, he took up land that he named 'Bulgoo station'—it still exists and lies south-wast of Cobar—pursuing pastoral activities for around five years, then operated a butchery in Cobar before retiring from business. After retiring, he lived for around 28 years on a small pastoral holding, known as 'Hildavale', which was "five or six miles north-east of Cobar". He died there, and was buried in the cemetery at Cobar.
Joseph Becker and Russell Barton Joseph Becker (1832–1878) as born at Godesberg, near Bonn, in what was then in the Rhine Province, a part of Prussia, now Germany. After a short military service, he emigrated to Australia and settled in Bourke. He became involved in supplying residents and surrounding pastoral properties, later taking part in commercial land deals. Described as 'the King of Bourke', he was a successful and wealthy man by the time that he became involved with the newly discovered copper deposit.
It was Becker who paid £10 to secure the forty-acre site around the mineral outcrop that became the site of Cobar Copper Mine. He was the first manager of the Cobar Copper Mining Company. By the time of his early death, in 1878, he was the largest shareholder of the Great Cobar Copper-Mining Company. He was a Knight Commander of Saint Gregory.
Russell Barton (1830–1916) was born at Penge, in London. After emigrating to Australia, he began working on a cattle station, at the age of 11. His first involvement with copper mining was as a carrier at the copper mine in Burra. In 1868, he bought 'Mooculta', a property that he had previously managed. At the time of the copper discovery, he was a grazier in the Bourke district. He later recounted that he had introduced Campbell to Joseph Becker and that Becker had given him some shares in the mining venture as a result. He became the venture's Managing Director and, from 1883, was the Chairman of the Great Cobar Mining Company.
Barton's name appeared—jointly with metallurgist Claude Theodore James Vautin and mine manager George Hardie—on a patent application, for "Improvements in the refining of impure commercial copper", made in 1881.
Barton was involved in other mines at Nymagee, Girilambone, and Broken Hill, and was a director of fourteen other mining companies in addition to Great Cobar. He became a director of Mercantile Mutual Insurance Co. Ltd, Mutual Life Insurance Co., the British and Foreign Marine Insurance Co. Ltd, and was managing director of the Pastoral Finance Association Ltd. He was a Member of the NSW Legislative Assembly, representing Bourke, an electorate that included both Bourke and Cobar, between 1880 and 1886.
He died in 1916, at what was then part of Five Dock, now Russell Lea, a suburb of Sydney. The suburb takes its name from Barton's grand Italianate house and its 60 acres of land, 'Russell Lea'.The Book of Sydney Suburbs, Compiled by Frances Pollon, Angus & Robertson Publishers, 1990, Published in Australia , pages 87 & 104 Russell was the maiden name of Russell Barton's mother.
Becker had holdings of land that were subsequently privately sub-divided and his former landholdings occupy a significant part of the Cobar township, The names Becker, Barton, and Bradley (another director) appear as street names in modern-day Cobar.
Great Cobar Copper Mining Company (1876–1889)
Amalgamation At the end of 1875, the Cobar and South Cobar companies were amalgamated into one entity, which was registered as the Great Cobar Copper Mining Company in January 1876, aiming to expand the mine and lift production.
The North Cobar mine lease lay to the north of the Great Cobar's lease. It always remained a separate entity from the Great Cobar.
Growth
In 1877, James Dunstan was appointed as the manager of the newly amalgamated Great Cobar operation. Two more reverberatory furnaces were erected in 1878.