The first NSW Government Geologist Samuel Stutchbury reported in July 1851 that there were copper lodes in the Cadia area. The Cadia area in New South Wales is 20 km SSW of Orange, a large provincial city 250 km west of Sydney on the western slopes of the Great Dividing Range. The area is at an elevation of about 800m with a stream known as Oakey or Cadiangullong Creek running through it from north to south.
In 1860 or earlier, owners of the 565 acre property on the west side of the Oakey Creek began sinking and driving, reporting a lode 70 feet wide, composed mainly of red oxide and green carbonate of copper. In July 1861, the Scottish Australian Mining Company (SAMC) leased the Cadia property and began operations at their Oakey Creek Copper Mine, later named Cadiangullong Copper Mine.
SAMC had extensive interests not only in NSW but in South Australia and Victoria as well. The Company had ordered a 25 inch rotative beam engine, to be built by J. Thomas & Company at the Charlestown Ironworks in St Austell, Cornwall. It was to be identical with the 25 inch engine then operating at the South Crinnis Mine in Cornwall. The engine was inspected by James Sims on behalf of SAMC prior to its despatch to Sydney in 1859. The engine and its associated equipment was intended for the Good Hope Mine near Yass, some 300 km SW of Sydney.
James Sims was a Cornish mining engineer who specialised in compound engines. He was well known in Australia as he had designed two engines for use in South Australia. One in 1850 was a 48 inch Bull engine and the second in 1851 was a 36 inch Bull engine, both made by Harvey & Co. of Hayle. His report on the inspection of the 25 inch Thomas engine and the crushing machine was laudatory; a copy of his handwritten letter from Redruth still exists, dated 22 September 1859. The engine and its associated equipment was received at Sydney wharf on 9 May 1860. However, installation at the Yass mine was deferred and the equipment remained in store in Sydney for nearly two years.
In August 1861, Captain Josiah Holman (born in Cornwall at Gwennap in 1821) was appointed as manager of the Cadia mine, after wide experience in the Phillipines, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, Malacca and New Zealand. A shaft was sunk to 23 fathoms and construction of an engine house was begun. The Thomas engine was moved from Sydney to Cadia in February 1862. In July 1862, smelter men arrived from Wales and smelting works were constructed at the southern end of the property, supervised by Captain John P. Christoe.
By 1863, the lode proved to be poorer at depth and exploration was directed to a lode a half mile to the south. A new mine was developed and called West Cadia, later called White or Big Engine Mine. In 1865, the 25" rotative engine was moved to the new site and erected. Rated at 50 hp, it hauled from a shaft 232 feet deep and operated a 7" Cornish pump, the water being used in the concentrating process. It also drove a crusher in the adjacent crusher house, as well as jigging and sawing machinery.
The engine was powered by a 10 ton Cornish boiler, 7 feet in diameter and 31 feet long with a flue 4 feet in diameter. The most unusual feature was the outer shell which is composed of 13 conical strakes to make up the 31 feet length, each strake having 5 plates to form the 22 feet circumference, each plate a nominal 4.5 feet long by 2.5 feet wide. Almost certainly the boiler is of wrought iron, with rivets that are hand closed. A single gusset stay at each end supported the flat end plate above the furnace tube.
Because copper prices were low, the Company closed the mine in late 1867, after 2000 tons of ore averaging 12.5% copper had been produced. The mine and plant were put up for auction on 16 June 1868 but there was no sale. Captain Holman leased the Cadia property from 9 May 1870 to 20 September 1871, working the mine on a small scale with only occasional use of the beam engine. There was no mining between 1871 and 1876 when Captain Holman was away in Queensland.
When Captain Holman returned, he began operating the White Engine Mine again in early August 1876 and continued working it until September 1878, producing 1020 tons of ores of nearly 11% copper. He had taken up farming, periodically working the mine for copper.
He died at Cadia on 18 February 1893. The headstone to Captain Holman and his wife still stands in a small cemetery near Cadiangullong Creek. It originally stood approximately 1 km south of the culvert, constructed using the engine boiler shell.
With the renewal of mining operations by Newcrest Mining Ltd, it was found necessary to move all the buried casks to a new site on the ridge above the site of the White Engine House. The headstone and the casks were moved to this new Cemetery. The Commemoration Ceremony for the new Garden of Remembrance Cemetery can be seeing on Ceremony pages.
The mine eventually closed completely in the 1920s. A 1930 photograph of the Cadia site is held by Mrs Margaret Morris who has family links back to the mining era.
 |
Photo by courtesy Mrs M. Morris. |
The Headframe of the Phillips Shaft is on the extreme left. The Crusher House is just left of centre with the White Engine House alongside. The Chimney is on the extreme right margin of the photograph. Between the Engine House and the Chimney is the Boiler House, probably without a roof.
Many people felt strongly that the Cadia site was of considerable heritage value and steps were taken in 1989 to determine its cultural as well as its heritage significance. An archaeological report of 80 pages was prepared by South Australian consultants, J.P. McCarthy and J.E. Connell, for the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy in June 1989.