Global InformationTamar Hematite Iron Company information
The Tamar Hematite Iron Company (THIC) was an iron mining and smelting company that operated from April 1874 to December 1877, in the area close to the location of the modern-day township of Beaconsfield, Tasmania, Australia.
The company's operations consisted of an iron ore mine near Brandy Creek, a blast furnace, jetty and township, on the Middle Arm of the estuary of the Tamar River, a tramway connecting the two sites, and charcoal and brick kilns.
The THIC was the first company to produce iron in commercial quantities from Tasmanian ore and bring their product to market, although others had made small quantities earlier.[1] It was the third company in Australia—at the time considered to be six separate self-governing British colonies—to make commercial quantities of pig-iron that was smelted from Australian iron ore.[2][3][4]
Pig-iron of good quality was made in its blast furnace from January 1875, until July 1875 when operations were suspended. Complicated by a decline in the price of pig iron, the venture was uneconomic at the scale of its operations.[5]
Plans to raise capital and increase the scale of production lapsed, after the manager of the company—Algernon Horatio Swifte—died in early-1876. A quartz-reef rich in gold was discovered on land adjacent to the company's lease in mid-1877 and gold mining interests became interested in accessing the company's lease.
In December 1877, the leases and other dormant assets of the THIC were sold cheaply to a group of wealthy and influential investors, under controversial circumstances. It soon became clear that the new owners—collectively known at 'the Hematite Company'—were interested in gold, not iron. In 1878, part of the THIC's original lease was combined with the operations of the adjacent 'Tasmania' gold mine, bringing huge profits to the new owners.
- ^ "TAMAR HEMATITE IRON COMPANY". Cornwall Chronicle (Launceston, Tas. : 1835 - 1880). 4 January 1875. p. 2. Retrieved 9 October 2019.
- ^ McKillop, Robert F. (2006). Furnace, fire & forge : Lithgow's iron and steel industry, 1874–1932. Light Railway Research Society of Australia. Melbourne, Australia: Light Railway Research Society of Australia. pp. 16, 17. ISBN 0909340447. OCLC 156757606.
- ^ Staughton, Peter Samuel (1976). The Lal Lal Blast Furnace Reserve report. Ashley, Robert William P., National Trust of Australia (Vic.), Lal Lal Blast Furnace Reserve. Committee of Management. [South Yarra, Vic.]: [National Trust of Australia, Victoria]. p. 124. ISBN 090971018X. OCLC 27604498.
- ^ "IRON SMELTING". Express and Telegraph. 22 July 1874. Retrieved 5 November 2021.
- ^ Twelvetrees, W.H. (13 March 1903). "REPORT ON THE MINERAL RESOURCES OF THE BEACONSFIELD AND SALISBURY DISTRICTS" (PDF). Government Geologist's Office, Launceston.