21 May 1998 - charterstowers.qld.gov.au

Draft printed 8 October 2014

ONE SQUARE MILE CHARTERS TOWERS

VOLUME ONE: HISTORY


O NE SQUARE MILE VOLUME ONE: HISTORY

A study for the Charters Towers City Council

© COPYRIGHT Allom Lovell Pty Ltd, October 01 \\NTServer\public\Projects\01052 ChartersQHTN\Reports\One square mile\r01.doc

ONE SQUARE MILE

CONTENTS

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1 INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 BACKGROUND 1

2 A THEMATIC HISTORY OF THE ONE SQUARE MILE AT CHARTERS TOWERS 4

2.1 PART ONE: BACKGROUND 4

FIRST INTERESTS 4 THE RUNS 4 REWARDS AND FINDS 5 DISCOVERY 5 CHARTERS TOWERS 7 OTHER CAMPS AND TOWNSHIPS 8 MILLCHESTER 8 THE RISE OF GOVERNMENT 10

2.2 PART TWO: THE MUNICIPALITY 10

SHIFTING TOWNSHIPS 11 THE RISE OF CHARTERS TOWERS 11 ONE SQUARE MILE 12 MOSMAN AND GILL STREETS 1877 13 EARLY RESIDENCES 14 EARLY BUILDERS 15

2.3 PART THREE: THE SELLHEIM YEARS 15

DALRYMPLE DIVISIONAL BOARD 16 HOTELS 17 CHURCHES 17 COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS 18 W. G. SMITH AND SONS 19 THE COLONIAL AND INDIAN EXHIBITION 20

2.4 PART FOUR: THE POST SELLHEIM YEARS 21

BEN TOLL 21 THE ARCHITECTS 23 THE ROYAL ARCADE 25

2.5 PART FIVE: TO THE PEAK 26

ONE SQUARE MILE

CONTENTS

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RETICULATION AND VISION 27 MINING 28 COMMERCIAL LIFE 31 IN THE SUBURBS 32

2.6 PART SIX: BEYOND THE PEAK 34

MUSIC AND ENTERTAINMENTS 35 MOVING ON 37 STAYING ON 39

2.7 PART SEVEN: THE DWINDLING YEARS 39

ADAPTATION 41 WORLD WAR TWO 41 SOUL SEARCHING 43

2.8 PART EIGHT:FINDING THE HERITAGE 45

2.9 BIBLIOGRAPHY 46

2.10 MAPS 49

3 THE GOLD MINES OF CHARTERS TOWERS 56

3.1 AN OVERVIEW OF MINING AND MILLING ON CHARTERS TOWERS 56

INTRODUCTION 56 1872-79: NORTH AUSTRALIA TO BRYAN O’LYNN 56 1879-89: DAY DAWN 61 1889-1902: BRILLIANT 65 1902-05: QUEEN CROSS 68

3.2 EPILOGUE 69

3.3 APPENDIX 1: APPROXIMATE LOCATION OF THE MAIN MINES IN THE SQUARE MILE

CIRCA 1900 71

DAY DAWN LINE 71 BRILLIANT LINE 71

3.4 APPENDIX 1A: SKETCH MAP OF THE SQUARE MILE 72

ONE SQUARE MILE

CONTENTS

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3.5 APPENDIX 2: BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SQUARE MILE LEASES 72

MILLS DAY DAWN UNITED 72 PFEIFFER’S DAY DAWN 73 DAY DAWN BLOCK AND WYNDHAM 73 DAY DAWN PC 73 NEW BRILLIANT FREEHOLDS (OR BRILLIANT FREEHOLDS) 74 BRILLIANT PC 74 BRILLIANT BLOCK 74 BRILLIANT DEEPS 74 EAST MEXICAN 75

3.6 APPENDIX 2A: LEASES ON THE SQUARE MILE 76

3.7 APPENDIX 3: GOLD PRODUCTION ON CHARTERS TOWERS 1872-1945 76

3.8 B I B L I O G R A P H Y 82

NORTHERN MINER 84

4 HOUSING IN CHARTERS TOWERS 86

4.1 CHARTERS TOWERS: REFERENCES 93

5 APPENDIX: BIBLIOGRAPHY 96

ONE SQUARE MILE 1

INTRODUCTION

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1 INTRODUCTION

Harters Towers is one of a handful of places in Queensland in which the history is not only reflected in surviving physical evidence but

which, because of that history, has developed almost a mythical status. The reasons for this are manifold but relate primarily to the wide range of historical themes and influences which shaped the city. The ‘one square mile’, an area set out as part of the earliest municipality in 1877 contains within its boundary evidence of many of these themes and its special care and management is seen as central to the continuing conservation and promotion of Charters Towers as an historical asset and a visitor destination.

1 . 1 B A C K G R O U N D

The Queensland Heritage Trails Network is a major initiative of the Queensland government to promote cultural tourism in Queensland, with the development of a number of tourism-related projects across the state. As part of this program the Charters Towers City Council has received funding from the Queensland Heritage Trails Network for the development of a number of projects in the town related to cultural tourism. The One Square Mile is one of four studies being prepared for sites in Charters Towers. Conservation management plans are being prepared for the Stock Exchange Arcade, the Venus Battery at Millchester and for Towers Hill to the south of the town. This, the first study, examines that area known as the ‘one square mile’ which, since 1877 was the genesis of the town. It contains within its boundaries evidence of the early growth and later development of the city not only in historic places but importantly in a series of less visible attributes or historical themes of history.

C

ONE SQUARE MILE 1

INTRODUCTION

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T H I S D O C U M E N T

The study area consists of a square with sides of one mile set out from the allotment on the corner of Mosman and Gill Streets. This area includes the central business centre of the city, government precincts including courthouse, post office, hospital a school reserve and residential areas. Part of this area is included in the Register of the National Estate of the Australian Heritage Commission. Individual sites within the area are included in the registers of the National Trust of Queensland and the Queensland Heritage Register under the legislative provisions of the Queensland Heritage Act 1992. A large number of sites are also identified in the draft Charters Towers Heritage Register of the Charters Towers City Council. This study has been undertaken in two parts. The first part (Volume 1) is the preparation of a thematic history of the city with an emphasis on the One Square Mile. It includes a summary understanding of the importance of the one square mile in the history of the city and includes contributions from three experts on particular aspects of the history of the city. Historian Mike Brumby has prepared a chronological history of the city, Diane Menghetti has prepared a history of mining in the city and Peter Bell has prepared an essay on the timber housing in the city. This volume includes a detailed bibliography in the Appendix. The second part of the study (Volume 2) develops an approach to the conservation of the special values of the city. This study includes a

1 A map of Charters Towers in 1905 showing the

one square mile shaded and the setout point as a black dot. [Queensland State Archives

modified by Allom Lovell]

2 The 1905 map showing the one square mile and the RNE listing for the town. [Queensland State

Archives modified by Allom Lovell]

ONE SQUARE MILE 1

INTRODUCTION

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summary of places included in the various heritage registers, together with controls, incentives and opportunities for the conservation of this area. This study draws together the work done by the heritage advisory service at the city over the last number of years and makes recommendations for further work to ensure the appropriate conservation of this asset.

1 . 2 S U M M A R Y O F F I N D I N G S

This study finds that the area of Charters Towers known as the One Square Mile is not only central to an understanding of the history of the city but contains within it evidence of the early settlement and its development in a range of sites and structures. The history of Charters Towers is unusual in Queensland where the * of development outstripped the more normal process of survey and settlement. The result was not however one of impermanence in the manner of some mining settlements and the wealth and optimism of the Charters Towers community at that time clearly saw a long term future for the town and perhaps even more remarkably, one of substance and style. It was nevertheless superimposed upon a mining landscape. The One Square Mile represents the city’s history and aspirations at that time and contains, still, in evidence of early buildings and civic form * that set it a part from other places in Queensland. The One Square Mile is literally and figuratively the essential care of the city and its conservation as part of the city’s heritage is warranted. A great deal of work has already been done in identifying the heritage values of this place and in setting out mechanisms to conserve the values. The resent study identifies many of these studies and develops a number of themes of history represented in the One Square Mile that might usefully be part of further understanding of this place. While it is not proposed that One Square Mile be isolated or quarantined from the continuing and * growth of the city it is clearly an area that requires special understanding and particular attention to ensure a balance that will allow these essential, even unique, historical characteristics to be maintained. Opportunities to manage change are identified and an outline of a management plan established which will see this important historical asset conserved.

ONE SQUARE MILE 2

A THEMATIC HISTORY OF THE ONE SQUARE MILE

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2 A THEMATIC HISTORY OF THE ONE SQUARE MILE AT

CHARTERS TOWERS

his essay has been prepared by Michael Brumby, who is a Charters Towers based historian. Mike has spent the recent year in researching many different aspects of the history of the city.

2 . 1 P A R T O N E : B A C K G R O U N D

The Europeanisation of North Queensland began officially in January

1861when the Kennedy Land District, from Cape Palmerston north to

Rockingham Bay and west to the Great Dividing Range, was declared

open for settlement. Thousands of years of occupation by groups of

Aborigines preceded this overture including that by the Kudjala people.

They were compelled to accommodate this intrusion to the detriment of

their life and culture. Material evidence of their long holding around

Charters Towers is scant although descendants perpetuate this phase as a

living history.

F I R S T I N T E R E S T S

European knowledge and interest in the lands of the Kennedy District

stemmed from Ludwig Leichhardt’s discovery and passage along the

Burdekin River when making his way from the Darling Downs to Port

Essington in 1844-5.

T H E R U N S

George Elphinstone Dalrymple led a privately funded survey of the

Burdekin watershed in 1859-60 for the purposes of taking up the land for

pastoral work. His endeavours came to fruition only after the newly

formed colony of Queensland allowed its northern reaches to be

occupied. Many of those who marked out pastoral runs along the full the

extent of the Burdekin when it was officially opened, then stocked them

with sheep and later cattle. This included the likes of William Steinhouse,

Christopher Allingham, Edward Cunningham and Marmaduke Curr who

had applied for runs in the upper Burdekin in that year. The principal

landholder in this area however was the Sydney based speculator Robert

Towns through his agent John Melton Black. The Texas Run where

Charters Towers would be later established was never taken up as

William Hodgson forfeited it. It then passed into the hands of John

T

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Melton Black and later Robert Towns. It, and the Oregon Run on the

southern side of the Broughton River remained with Black until at least

1874 and as such, both were not stocked (Kennedy Register of Runs,

1861; QGG: Rents 1868 – 1874) Instead, Edward Cunningham from

across the river at Burdekin Downs availed himself the use of the

pastures across the river and so erected a cattle camp on Texas, on what

became known as Mosman’s Creek. Robert Gray in his Reminiscences of

India and North Queensland of 1913 remembered seeing Edward

Cunningham on one occasion mustering in that direction. (Gray: 150). Its

use would have been in accordance with the seasons and flow of water in

the creek and afforded no permanency.

R E W A R D S A N D F I N D S

Run holders along the Burdekin River first used Bowen as their supply

and communications centre. In 1864, this was supplemented by other

ports at Cleveland Bay (Townsville) and Cardwell, which were

established by northern landholders. At the same time the township of

Dalrymple to the north of present day Charters Towers, was established

beside the Burdekin River as a staging point for those living on the upper

Burdekin and beyond. These settlements, together with the run holders

eventually faced an economic impasse as local markets proved too small

and grander ones too far away. So in 1865 a group of Townsville

businessmen decided the discovery of payable gold would swell their

economic hopes through an influx of people. They offered a discoverer’s

reward, and in no time reports were made of gold on the Star River. The

Queensland Government too, introduced a reward system for gold

discoveries and this was followed with better finds on the Cape River in

1867, the Gilbert River and at Ravenswood, both in 1869. Not that

reward was the sole driving force. Richard Daintree, then co-owner of

Maryvale Station on the upper Burdekin, was instrumental in the finds on

the Cape and on the Gilbert being found through his experiences as a

geologist.

D I S C O V E R Y

As a find by prospectors making their way to the Cape River diggings

and with help from local pastoralists, the Ravenswood Goldfield proved

the greatest economic hope in the north. It was the field closest to the

coast with alluvial finds eventually leading to quartz mining. The field

stretched mining prospects across the Burdekin River as well, where gold

Figure 1 Ravenswood

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Figure 2 Hugh Mosman, one of the discoverer's of gold at Charters Towers.

CTADAG: 973901/19

was found on the Broughton River watershed in late 1871. Like many

others seeking a livelihood through mining, three outside prospectors,

Hugh Mosman, George Clarke and John Fraser in the company of an

aboriginal horseboy, Jupiter Mosman, came into this area from the St

Lawrence District in December 1871. When their fortunes faded, they

moved on, having been attracted to “a cluster of conical and square

topped hills to the north.” (NMR: 23/12/1891)

“It was a dry time, the nearest water five miles away in an opposite

direction. A storm was near, and while we were deliberating as to

whether we should go to the water, or camp and trust to the water coming

to us, the question was settled rather abruptly. A terrific peal of thunder

started our packhorse at the best pace through the bush – an unlucky

stampede resulting in the loss of all our cooking apparatus, except one tin

dish. Rain fell in a perfect torrent, and we camped at once.

The following day we went through a gap between the hills which had so

long formed the subject of our observation, and camped near the outcrop

of the North Australian reef. Masses of quartz were strewn about the

surface, which we at once saw were very rich, and when afterwards

crushed they yielded 3 oz. And upwards to the ton. Stone raised from

beneath the surface from the North Australian went 4 _oz. To the ton.

The following day we found payable quartz in at least half-a-dozen places

– reefs afterwards known as the Mary, Wyndham, Moonstone, Ophir,

Rainbow and others. In the Rainbow we got the richest specimens. We

prospected for several days, finding other reefs carrying gold and we

then went back and moved our permanent camp from the Seventy-mile to

Charters Towers. There was no time for proving reefs by sinking, so

after a careful examination of surface blows we selected the North

Australian. Ophir and another, the name of which I forget, as the best...”

On the 26th January 1872, Mosman then journeyed to Ravenswood to

where Gold Commissioner W.S.E.M. Charters was temporarily in charge

of that field as well as carrying out his normal responsibilities for the

Cape and Broughton fields. Mosman applied for a protection area and on

the 6 February 1872 Charters inspected the locality while on his way to

the Cape. On this occasion the discoverers christened the locality

“’Charters Towers,’ “in honour of the big man from the Cape.” (RM:

17/02/1872)

Figure 3 Looking towards the Gap. The building in the centre is the North

Australian hotel. CTADAG: 211191330

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C H A R T E R S T O W E R S

The lines of reefs and rush of miners that followed up on the discovery by

Mosman, Clarke and Fraser colluded to define Charters Towers as a place

for mining. By the end of February the population on the south bank of

the Burdekin River almost doubled to between 700 and 800 miners. (RM:

24/02/1872) That the locality began with Mosman’s mining camp on the

northern side of Towers Hill made sense as it was important both legally

and practically to be with one’s claim. It quickly evolved into a place to

service the basic needs of the first followers on to their own claims and

was in evidence by the middle of March 1872. (Brumby: 2000; RM:

17/02/1872)

... I have great faith in the place and in a few weeks will see a thriving

township established here. At present it consists of three small stores and

a butchers shop. Lower down on the creek a permanent building is put up

by Owens & Co. which is well stocked with goods.... (RM: 16/03/1872)

A shortage of water forced the camp to move further north along a ridge

between Mosman’s and Deane’s Creek. The nucleus of a flourishing

township was in evidence in June 1872 with Owens Store, Adolph

Trevethan's butchers shop, Fitzmeyers Store, Merritt and Kneighton and

J.Connolly and Co. established themselves there along the track down the

ridge, which was later known, as Mosman Street. Owens Store was the

first permanent building and was sited on what became Section 3 Lot 2,

which today is vacant land beside the Royal Private Hotel in Mosman

Street. Joseph Woodburne applied for the Publican’s Country License to

run a hotel on Charters Towers. It was named the Reefer’s Arms and was

on Lot 8 of Section 5. John Pfauzamier applied for the Charters Towers

Hotel at the same locality. (RM: 22/06/1872)

Charters conducted the first survey of the business areas of Mosman

Street in May 1872 in order to regulate its future needs. He was

especially critical of the omission of cross streets so proposed to make

chain wide cross streets every seven allotments to join Mosman Street.

Given that he proposed to make the first cross street north of

Woodburne’s store and from that store other cross streets will be laid off

in rotation one each of the street now being formed, some buildings had

to be moved. As reported one month later: Cuts through the store of

J.Connolly on the one side and A. Trevethan and Co's butcher shop and T

Figure 4 Upper Mosman Street, 1875? CTADAG: 200091347.

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.Merritts Hotel on the other notwithstanding at the time, there were no

buildings on the south side of Owen’s Store [took place.] (RM: 11/05 &

22/06/1872)

O T H E R C A M P S A N D T O W N S H I P S

Charters Towers would not be the sole locality of support for miners

requiring food, accommodation, victualling, repairs and equipment.

Following his return from the Cape River on 23 March 1872, Charters

laid off the first twenty-five claims on thirteen lines of reef, their

localities scattered and as far away as five kilometres. The North

Australian, General Wyndham and Mary Reefs were in proximity to each

other alongside the northern slopes of the Towers and therefore were

close to what was named Charters Towers. To the east of Charters

Towers and in relative proximity to each other were the Just in Time, the

Queen, the Maud St Ledger, the Caledonian and the St Patrick Reefs. A

business and residential area developed near the former and was known

as the Just in Time Township. It serviced this part of the field. (The

arrival of the rail line in 1882 and erection of rail facilities nearby would

result in the rise of this area and become known as Queenton, in honour

of the Queen Reef.) (QSA: Mines Dpt Map # 4719, 1877?) Yet the

isolation of others laid off at this time enforced some mining camps

remaining as such: for example the Wellington and the Welcome were to

the south of the Towers (today’s Towers Hill). (QSA: A/20697)

Furtherest away was the Washington which was five kilometre to the

south east and had been found by Clarke and Fraser

M I L L C H E S T E R

The follow-on question from mining was where the milling would take

place. Crushing the quartz to free the gold was a mandated requirement

and demanded a reliable water supply to do so. In fact the first machine

areas were pegged in March 1872 besides Gladstone Creek to the east of

Charters Towers. It was the belief of mill owners attracted to the

goldfield that this creek system possessed a reliable water supply and was

close to most mining activity. (It was also understood that the only

machine at work on this side of the Burdekin, Deane’s Black Dog at the

Broughton Township was some fourteen miles to the east, and just too far

away.) So another township centred along a ridge above the confluence

of Gladstone and Buchanan’s Creek quickly developed and was soon

named Millchester:

Figure 5 Commissioner Charters.

CTADAG: 973901/1

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A township has also been pegged out close to the site where Buchanan

intends to erect his machine. It is situated on a fine ridge and is a most

eligible situation for a township ... I believe it is an unprecedented thing

in the annals of quartz reefing that machinery is to be erected on the

ground within such a short period of the opening of a field in some six to

seven weeks. (RM: 23/03/1872)

Bill Buchanan’s machine was the first mill at work there on 28 June 1872

and was quickly followed by Plant and Jackson’s mill, the Venus, on 15th

July 1872. That another separate and distinctly different township was

decreed so swiftly, proved the power of the machines and was testimony

to the commitment of mill owners prepared to come out of Ravenswood.

The place of milling was at the cutting edge of getting the gold, as this

was where the value and valuables of the mining were made evident. It

was where the assayer and the banker had to be, together with the

providers of industrial and commercial services such as hoteliers,

blacksmiths, butchers, bakers and store keepers. In between these

erections at Millchester, Deane’s Defiance mill commenced operations on

2nd July 1872 lower down from the Charters Towers Township on

Mosman’s Creek:

“One of the cattle camps of Mr. Cunningham’s was situated in close

proximity to the present Defiance Mill site, and the hut erected there was

the pioneer building in Charters Towers.” (Charters Towers the Premier

Goldfield of Eastern Australia. Supplement to the Northern Miner

09/10/1899)

Deane’s move here remains understated as it is in juxtaposition to the

romance of mills at Millchester. His machine would attract a small

business and residential area and thus give more credence to the rise of

this part of the goldfield. After six months the Ravenswood Miner

reflected:

“Scarcely has that time lapsed since Messrs Mossman and party applied

for their prospecting claim on what we know as the North Australia line.

During that time ... several hundred reefing claims are now occupied,

thousands of tons of quartz are stacked ready for carting to the machines

as soon as the owners are so fortunate as to get a chance to put their

stone through; two main townships and several smaller ones have sprung

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into existence as by magic the buildings being of extensive description,

very different from what one would expect to see on a new rush; five

quartz crushing machines in all 63 head of stamps are on the ground and

the quantity of stone in the various yards is sufficient proof of the amount

they will have. The population is daily increasing and now number we

would judge, about 3000.” (NM: 17/08/1872) On the 29 August 1872, the

Charters Towers Goldfield was proclaimed.

T H E R I S E O F G O V E R N M E N T

The new township of Millchester was confirmed when Superintendent

Commissioner Jardine took temporary charge of the goldfield at the end

of 1872. This action was brought about when Charters’ administration

floundered. By default, the field had been added to the responsibilities he

already had for the Cape and the Broughton, and besides, he was in poor

health. That some of his interpretations of the mining regulation were

unusual and arbitrary did little to placate the miners and millers, who in

the majority were pleased to see him moved on. In this resolution of

troubles, not helped by the discovery of the Millchester deep lead, the

resulting rush from the south and follow-on meat riots, Jardine decreed

Millchester, at the expense of Charters Towers, to be the site of

government. He directed the goldfield’s courthouse and government

buildings be erected there and for the telegraph to terminate there. The

flow on effect was for the first banks and the first assay office to set up in

business there as well as attract other businesses. (Votes and Proceedings,

1873:1071)

2 . 2 P A R T T W O : T H E M U N I C I P A L I T Y

The discovery of alluvial gold on the Palmer River in the Cook District in

September 1873, drew many miners from the Towers looking for quicker

returns. (Bolton: 52). The population who stayed on Charters Towers

continued to find gold as shafts went deeper, being a time in its

development Diane Menghetti described as a poor man’s field.

(Menghettt1: 1984) During these years the township of Charters Towers

grew as business and working life concentrated in the western end of the

field where the mines predominated. Here Mosman and Gill Street were

surveyed by Government Surveyor Johnson in 1874 in an uncustomary

“T” junction of polarity which reflected the north to south links in the

former between mines and victuals, and east-west links in the latter

between this town and Millchester. (Brumby, 1997:1) (Johnson’s work

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was followed by Surveyor Sharkey in 1875.)

S H I F T I N G T O W N S H I P S

In July 1874 The Northern Miner announced: The Towers [is] solidifying

rapidly and is giving undeniable proofs that it means to stand. New shops

and stores are going up. Publics are being renovated and painted, the

bank of New South Wales is to open an agency next Tuesday having

moved up a cottage from Millchester for that purpose. (NM: 25/07/1874)

In fact many had begun at Charters Towers, had moved under Jardine’s

Milllchesterian edict and now moved back. (Janececk, 2001) The

Northern Miner was a case in point.

The government stamp on Millchester with its principal streets named in

honour of government officials Jardine and Macdonald, juxtaposed the

sentiment of ordinary people on Charters Towers wanting to name theirs

for the common man. And so perhaps politically they felt disinclined to

live in a government town. The attraction of the mills there at Millchester

soon waned as their industrialness was seen and heard to be a social

liability rather than a commercial asset. When the last two banks, the

Queensland National and Australian Joint Stock, left Millchester in

December 1876: a gradual moving away from Millchester must be the

result was the township’s death knell. (NA: 23/12/1876.) While Charters

Towers would emerge as the principal township, the same named locality

described by Jardine in October 1872 as about three miles square and

dotted with tents and humpies would embrace Millchester, the Just in

Time Township, the camps and mines in between.

T H E R I S E O F C H A R T E R S T O W E R S

During these shifting times, some of the civilising sentiments of goldfield

life were put in place. First at Millchester there was the need and

confidence to erect a Church of England and a provisional school in 1873

– 4 as well as a school of arts. But in 1875 the Northern Miner described

the township of Charters Towers: With the rise of new churches here,

[and] the opening of lodges by Oddfellows and Good Templars, the

community is to be rehabilitated and the crimean shirt and free and easy

must give way to starch fronts and belltoppers. (NM: 26/06/1875)

Here were the beginnings of a hospital on a six-acre reserve on high ridge

to the east of the township and the opening of a school to the south. In

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between as common wealth for the whole goldfield, there was by 1877, a

racecourse, a cemetery, a pound, slaughter yards and Chinese gardens

along the principal creeks. (QSA: Mines Dpt Map # 4719, 1877?) (A

burial ground had been in use at Charters Towers prior to this on a

portion of the land used by St Columba’s Church. (NA: 08/04/1876).

The [155] petitioners state they are householders and freeholders in the

town of Charters Towers, and that they are desirous that the said town of

Charters Towers may be declared a municipality under the Municipal

Institutions Act of 1864. ... believing that if the said town of Charters

Towers be declare a Municipality it will be for the benefit of themselves

and those who succeed them as inhabitants of said town. That the town of

Charters Towers contains fifteen hundred inhabitants or more and is one

square mile in area. That buildings of a superior description are being

erected almost daily, and that large additions are being made to the

already existing mining plants in and around the town, and that there is

every indication of the town increasing in population, wealth and

stability.( QGG 1877: 425.)

So the business people of Gill and Mosman Streets and miners on nearby

reefs petitioned the Governor of Queensland in February 1877 to become

a municipality. Its proclamation on 21 June 1877 brought the town into

legal existence as a municipality with its first Mayor and aldermen

elected two months later. (QGG: 1877) Its proclamation would punctuate

an end to the field’s uncertainty and bring about civic growth and pride.

O N E S Q U A R E M I L E

The one square mile set aside for this purpose, was defined by a boundary

half a mile from each point of the compass from the intersection of

Mosman and Gill Streets. (That point is the north west corner of Section

5, which is right outside the door of Stan Pollards.) Boundary Street, its

northern boundary commencing in the east from Boundary Street’s

crossing of Mosman’s Creek south to Regent Street, defined the eastern

boundary. In the west, the boundary was made up of Felix Street in the

north with its southwest portion crossing over Cambridge and Oxford

Street. The southern boundary followed Regent Street west over Upper

Mosman and Upper Stubley Streets. The Mexico [sic] was the only reef

marked inside this business and residential enclave at this time. A Sydney

Mail of 1895 described it as the smallest municipality in the colony of

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Queensland if not Australia, [containing] the Town Hall, the Pastoral and

Agricultural Societies’ grounds, the Lissner Park and one or two reserves.

In 1877 the latter included land set aside for public buildings behind Gill

in Hodgkinson Street including a courthouse and lockup; there was a

quarry reserve on the northern inskirts of the north west boundary, a

reserve for a school of arts in Upper Mosman Street and opposite it, the

Church of England.

Within the One Square Mile were sited the core of businesses premises

essential to supporting the every whim, want and need of every miner.

(Brumby, 1997: 3) It was compactly built and like many mining

townships, the streets are narrow and irregular and the principal

thoroughfares – Gill and Mosman Streets – are only one chain wide.

(Sydney Mail: 332) The premises of superior description, as the 1877

petition stated, were in fact an ancient architecture described by O’Kane

as late as 1884, as being a most primitive and savage style. (NM:

30/01/1884) Their immediate replacements either, in timber but with

most in brick, today are largely intact. With such intactness still in

evidence ninety years after the gold field’s demise, a rich tapestry of built

heritage remains. (Brumby, 1997)

Refer to Plan of Sections Nos 1 to 15 Town of Charters Towers, 1876

(QSA: L5/4 1876)

M O S M A N A N D G I L L S T R E E T S 1 8 7 7

The valuations first registered by the Municipality of Charters Towers in

1877 covered allotments on 17 sections together with 225 on surrounding

unsurveyed lands. (QSA: 11 CHA/N1 CTCC Valuation Register 1877;

QSA COL/A247) Mosman Street was the principal business street and

comprised Sections 1 to 6 from Elizabeth Street south to Towers Street.

Gill Street worked out of Mosman and comprised Sections 5 and 4 in part

to Deane Street and 7, 8 and 9 as far as Church Street. At this time the

unsurveyed land included reserves for a school, a hospital and two

churches nearby. Also there was a police reserve that faced Gill and Bow

Streets in Section 7, which today is by the post office.

Mosman Street covered sections 1 to 6 and comprised premises and

residences on104 allotments. Commercial outlets in this street were

dominated by hotels, there being a total of twenty-one, with one other,

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Hishon’s hotel on the present day site of Target in Gill Street. So

something close to twenty percent of the built landscape comprised

places to drink, be entertained and accommodated. Other allotments in

Sections 1 to 9 of Mosman and Gill Street as afar as Church Street,

covered a range of commercial outlets that would have been essential to a

newly developed goldfield. They comprised five businesses with forges;

three banks, two saddlers, two butchers, two bakers, two chemists, two

tailors, two plumbers, two newspapers and two jewellers. There were

three dressmakers and three boot makers, there were four auction houses

and three agencies. There was a fruit shop, a produce store and two

photographers. There was a sawmill, a cabinetmaker a solicitor and two

halls in Gill Street: one for the Masons and one for the Oddfellows.

The highest assessed annual value was £350 for Brodziak and Rogers

Mosman Street store. This was followed by five Mosman Street hotels:

the Royal Hotel on Section 3 Allotment 1A, Owen O’Neill’s West Coast

hotel on the north east corner of Mosman and Gill, and Arthur St

Vincent’s Sportsman’s Arms, which was removed many years later when

Elizabeth Street was widened. Their values were between £263 and £200.

Intermixed with these outlets were Lissner’s Store (£210) and On War

Jang’s Wholesale, Retail and General Store, (£210) both on Mosman

Street.

E A R L Y R E S I D E N C E S

Residences ranged from the typicality of George Clarke’s one roomed

bark hut through to houses and cottages. (Clarke’s abode was on

allotment two in section eleven on the corner of Hodgkinson and Deane

Streets which today is the site of Aldborough House.) Place of residency

then was either as an annex to a business, or as a separation. Thomas

Buckland owned a three roomed weatherboard verandahed cottage on

Section 8 allotment 3 in Gill Street. With a kitchen and an office, it was

valued at £90. (Today it is the site of the Tile Shop and a private

residency behind.) Israel Lemel, partner in, and manager of the Brodziak

Rogers store, had a six roomed verandahed cottage on allotment 30 in

Section 11 in Aland Street. Yet not all people were so well

accommodated. “Kaz Yuel” remembered of 1875:

“There were many semi-civilized blacks on the field. About 200 of them

were camped about a half a mile over the creek at the rear of our humpy,

Figure 6 Balm oral Castle in 1877 at the lower end of Mosman Street. CTADAG:

200091334

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and the barking of mangy dogs and the yabber of the tribe could be heard

every night. Brumby, 2001: 86)

E A R L Y B U I L D E R S

Alexander Fraser, and Hugh Ross were two builders who set up

businesses on the goldfield in the 1870’s. Fraser secured important

contracts for works at Millchester including the courthouse and police

barracks in 1873, St Philips Church of England and the school and

residence in 1874. As Fraser Brothers, he went on to build the F.D.G.

Stanley designed Queensland Bank timber premises in Mosman Street six

years later. Today that much renovated removed timber structure serves

as the Tourist Information Office. (Brumby, 1997: 5)

In 1876 Hugh Ross set up premises in Gill Street including an extensive

timber yard at the rear to support his building interests. Ross was one of

the first on the field to construct in brick. He erected three sets of shops in

Gill Street: one beside the Police Barracks in 1883, another almost

opposite where Thomasson’s Grocery store stands today, and further up

on the corner of Mosman and Gill.

Hugh Ross has made a great improvement in the appearance of one of his

blocks in the street by the removal of the old verandah and the

substitution of a style, which is quite a novelty here. It consists of a row of

metal pillars with arched iron roof on top. The pillars and fretwork were

cast t the Townsville Foundry. ... They vary in height with the height of

the ground averaging nine feet; between the pillars run fret work joining

into brackets at the corners. The whole gives a light and elegant

appearance to the shop fronts, more light is admitted and more heat

excluded. It would be an advantage to the town if Mr Ross’s example

were generally followed. Our street architecture is the most primitive and

savage style and reformation is much needed. (NM: 30/01/1884)

2 . 3 P A R T T H R E E : T H E S E L L H E I M Y E A R S

The work of Hugh Ross and the rise of brick buildings on the goldfield

reflected the wax of more than favourable returns from deeper mining.

The catalyst that took it from being a poor man’s field was the Day Dawn

PC mine. It was owned by a group of mainly German miners who proved

that the more one sunk the more gold would be found:

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“ ... It appears that one particular party – Pfeiffer’s – set in train a

series of events by which Charters Towers became twice the producer it

would otherwise have been. The day dawn lode was discovered in 1872,

but had produced nothing of any great value when Pfeiffer and party

started work on the Day Dawn PC in 1874. They persevered in spite of

poor returns and in 1878 success was attained. The Day Dawn PC

became one of the largest producers on the field.” (Levingston: 2)

Overseeing the transformation of the goldfield from June 1880 to January

1888 was Warden Philip Frederic Sellheim. (ADB: 101) The growing

value of the goldfield to Queensland had been assurance enough for the

government to pass legislation in August 1877 to build North

Queensland’s first rail line from the port of Townsville to Charters

Towers. Work on the line westward reached the Reid River in December

1880 and the line was completed on the 4 December 1882. (NM:

3/10/89, 8/6/1901) Over this time frame the 1881 census showed Charters

Towers to be the most populous centre in the Kennedy District with 7,268

people. Townsville had 5,140 people while Mackay had 5,787.

(Queensland Census Districts: Kennedy, 1881[map]) The long-term

outcome for this connection would be for both human and material

resources to be more effectively transported to the goldfield.

D A L R Y M P L E D I V I S I O N A L B O A R D

At this time local government was extended to rural areas of Queensland

when the Divisional Boards Act of 1879 was passed. A year later the

Dalrymple Divisional Board first met to assume responsibilities for the

lands and people abounding the one square mile of Charters Towers. In

geographical terms its outlook was pastoral given that it encompassed

36,300 square miles of largely uninhabited country. In reality it would be

dominated by the needs of its Division One where the bulk of mining and

milling would be undertaken on the Charters Towers Goldfield for the

next 21 years. (Neal, 1984: 1, 199). It was within the Dalrymple Board

area, in particular Division One, that facilities were further developed to

service the one square mile. This included two schools reserves, an

athletics reserve (1887) manure depots, a cricket reserve, and a new

racecourse. In 1902 Division One would break away after in excess of

1,500 landowners petitioned the government to form the Queenton Shire

Council

Figure 7 Upper Mosman with the original Club Hotel on the right, 1893? CTADAG:

972402/10

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H O T E L S

The catalogue of commercial and public building constructions that took

place in the wake of the rail line opening, embraced the advancing use of

milled timber and brick, both materials becoming more readily available

with the establishment of local brick works and sawmills. The rise of

timbered constructions along Mosman and Gill Streets apexed with large

two storeyed double verandahed hotels being erected on the goldfield to

supplement the primitive and savage style. This was the case with the

erection of the Imperial hotel in lower Mosman Street (1884) as well as

the Sunburst (1885) and Occidental (1885) hotels in Gill Street, which

took up prominent corner locations. All have vanished. Also erected

along Mosman Street at this time in Section five were the Towers, the

Reefer’s Arms and Towers hotels. These too have disappeared.

The rise of brick on the goldfield was premiered four years later when the

Oddfellows erected their new hall in 1880. It was designed by architect

and engineer J.N. Longden and built by Thomas Wyatt. (Brumby,

1997:41; Watson & McKay: 114) Known as the MU [Manchester Unity]

Hall, it still stands as a setback in Upper Gill Street. The Crown hotel on

the corner of Mosman with Jackson took the lead in brick-built two

storey hotels towards the end of 1882 and was followed by the Prince of

Wales diagonally opposite in single storey brick. The former remains as a

single storey following a fire in 1982, while the shell of the latter forms

part of Paul Carney’s Motors.

C H U R C H E S

The Sellheim years saw to the rise of timber-formed and gothic styled

houses of worship and the establishment of an ecclesiastical precinct

centred on Church Street. The goldfield’s first Roman Catholic Church

was relocated there from the Just in Time Township to begin this area of

worship on Churchs’ corner with Gill, being replaced by a Longden

designed structure in 1879-1880. (Watson & McKay: 114) Diagonally

opposite, a Wesleyan (later Methodist) church was erected in 1879, while

further down Church Street on the corner with Ryan; a Presbyterian

church was built in 1885. In September 1885, the German community

put forward plans to construct their church on the corner of Anne and

High, this time in brick, as some form of affirmation of their commitment

and sense of firm attachment to Charters Towers. The German Church

was opened in 1886. In the follow on years in the streets close to Church,

Figure 8 The first Baptist Church being removed under the direction of Walter

Hunt. CTADAG: 972401/136

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a convent was built on the high point of High Street in 1892, the Baptist

removed their church from elsewhere to Ryan Street in 1900 and the

Salvation Army erect their barracks in Hodgkinson Street.

The new Church of England on Charters Towers was built on the rise out

of Upper Mosman Street in December 1883 and was an exception to the

Church Street sphere, there having being some supposition that the town

would develop in the direction of Upper Mosman Street. It was designed

by W.G. Smith jnr and built by Ben Toll. In fact the move into Church

Street and beyond was a measure of the one square mile going east

beyond its borders especially with the railway terminating further down

Gill Street at Queenton.

C O M M E R C I A L B U I L D I N G S

Beyond the rise of hotels and the erection of churches, the town

increasing in population, wealth and stability was most evident in the rise

of commercial outlets. Some fitted into Mosman Street as was the case

when Thomas Buckland replaced the building housing his assay office on

the corner of Mosman and Elizabeth in brick with what is now known as

Buckland’s Number One Building. It still stands and continues to serve

use in a variety of commercial uses. But most were additions along Gill

Street at a time when shops will soon line the whole way to Queenton.

There was a building boom, which O’Kane charged: trade has already

mounted the Mons Sacer of Charters Towers. Mount Piety has been

invaded. (NM: 17/1018/83) Particular commercial buildings erected at

this time included Carse and Lauther’s store, Caledonian House in timber

in 1885 and Hugh Ross’s final and most imposing store on the corner of

Gill and Mosman. (Brumby, 1997:53; NM: 5/1/1885)

The big three in banking: the Bank of New South Wales, Queensland

National Bank and Australian Joint Stock Bank were joined by the Union

bank in 1880, all using premises on Mosman Street. The Bank of

Australasia took a new direction if not material type when its new

premises were opened in Gill Street in early 1885. (NM: 30/01/1885) The

London Chartered Bank of Australia followed in two storey brick

premises the following year.

By the commencement of 1886, tenders had been called for construction

of a courthouse in Hodgkinson Street; (NM: 18/11/1885) the hospital and

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Municipal Chambers had been erected in 1884, as had the railway station

at Queenton one year later. The School of Arts in upper Mosman Street

had been expanded to include a second storey. (NM: 20,22/7/1885)

Building and contracting business expanded, the notable firms being Ben

Toll, Wyatt and Gates, and Villiers and Johnson. And the first of the

successful miner’s villa residences was erected around late 1882, for

Frederick Pfeiffer, beside his Day Dawn P.C. Mine high on the ridge of

the same name and overlooking the town he would always call home.

Day Dawn House (The Pfeiffer Residence)

W . G . S M I T H A N D S O N S

The ascendancy of the architect at work on the goldfield was made most

evident through William George Smith Jr. From 1886 onwards,

according to Watson and McKay, he was in partnership with his father,

William George Smith Snr while working out Townsville as W.G. Smith

and Sons. (Watson and McKay: 165) Prior to this, W.G. Smith Jr was

credited with the design of the Church of England, which opened in

December 1883. He was reported to have opened an office on the Towers

two years later in 1885 and to have supervised the rebuilding of the

Prince of Wales hotel in brick that same year. The year previous, W.G.

Smith Snr had supervised the erection of the hospital as inspector of

public works in North Queensland.

His catalogue of work includes when the Whitehead Brothers had two

shops built in Mosman Street 1887 by Charles Miller to a W.G. Smith

design. (Joe Whitehead and his brother had established themselves as

drapers on the gold field by 1885, Joe having been an owner of the Venus

Mill and with extensive mining investments.) In the same year the

Excelsior Hotel was constructed at the top of Gill Street to a Smith

design. (NM: 17/01/1887) The Masonic Temple, originally a single

storey building, was constructed in 1887 to a W.G. Smith design. Its

second storey was added in 1891. (NM: 9/6/1887) And Ben Toll built

E.D. Miles & Co mining exchange premises in 1887 to plans drawn by

W.G. Smith Jnr.

With such building progress, especially in brick, it seemed the one square

mile was at its hiatus. In his review of the first fifteen years of the

goldfield’s achievements, Warden Sellheim described the one square mile

as having a population of 7,000 people chiefly engaged in trade and

Figure 9 Excelsior hotel 1893?

CTADAG:973402/21

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occupations connected with gold mining... its eastern boundary joined the

township of Queenton with a population of 4,00 and further down the

town of Millchester with 500 people. He went on to account for the

trappings of an established town having a school of arts, a first class and

well kept hospital, a number of halls belonging to Masons; Oddfellows

and other lodges, and a jockey club. There was a Mining, Pastoral and

Agricultural Association, (The first Show took place in June 1881 and

was an annual affair, being held on a reserve at the end of Mary Street

(NM: 1/4/1884))

There was an efficient fire brigade as well as corps of the defence force

and mounted infantry. ‘A’ Company Charters Towers and ‘B’ Company

Townsville were gazetted in March 1885 to form the nucleus of the

Kennedy Division of the QDF’s Northern District. Soon the town had a

drill hall erected on land excised from the Mexican Gold Mine lease in

Church Street and a rifle range for musketry practice on the other side of

Plant’s Ridge beyond the one square mile to support their military

requirements. The former remains in use as an SES Centre while the

range was subsumed by a housing development in 1994. (Brumby,

2001:7; Brumby 1996)

T H E C O L O N I A L A N D I N D I A N E X H I B I T I O N

In his 1887 report, Sellheim also accounted for three newspapers and two

brass bands, one generally playing on Saturday evening in the main

street, where everybody seems to make a point of congregating the street

being crowded from side to side, and presenting a very lively appearance.

The buildings are mostly one storey and built of wood, but there are a few

good two storey ones of both wood and brick. (Sellheim: 23) In fact the

peak of the goldfield was almost two decades away with the effects of

overseas investments on the goldfield just being realised, especially along

Gill and Mosman Streets.

“By 1886 Local entrepreneurs were ready for the ‘biggest goldmine of

them all’: English Investors! The venue for this quest for capital was the

Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886 held in the Crystal Palace,

London. In the Queensland court a Walkers (of Maryborough) stamper

was set up, and daily crushings of ore were offered as a demonstration of

the good sense of investing in CT. The results were instanteous - a flood

of money was available for the future development of CT. eg Day Dawn

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Block and Wyndham - 442000 one pound share fully subscribed in

London- of the £442000 received 401000 went in cash to the vendors

leaving only 40400 for working capital.” (Roderick:17)

The plant was designed and erected by J.N. Longden, which amid great

noise and excitement treated 200 tons of quartz to produce bars of fine

gold. (NM: 10/08/1886; Watson & McKay:114) Much investment, in

Menghetti’s view, was speculative, rather than developmental in purpose.

Irrespectively, local confidence in mining went to an all time high.

Residents could see no end to their prosperity as the town was citified and

urbanised under the rise of new mining infrastructure.

2 . 4 P A R T F O U R : T H E P O S T S E L L H E I M Y E A R S

Most of the public buildings that still grace Gill and Mosman Streets

were built in the wake of the 1886 Exhibition, whereby many of timber

buildings and original shanties of the 1870’s were demolished to make

way for bricked structures. And again, the work of W.G. Smith and Son

predominated. Yet the building contractor with connecting trades was of

equal importance to the task of transforming the main streets of the one

square mile. In this, Peter Bell regards Ben Toll as the town’s most

prominent builder (Bell: 110).. His work typifies the fly of the one square

mile into the twentieth century made in the wealthy wash of British

investments and later the rise of the Brilliant group of mines.

In 1886 Richard Craven began a deep shaft seeking a supposed lode

intersection. The intersection was never found, but exploration of an

impressive fissure in the shaft discovered largest ore shoot ever found on

Charters towers. The success of this, the Brilliant lode, began a period of

deep sinking producing vertical shifts up to 778 m deep. (Levingston: 2)

B E N T O L L

Ben Toll began in business on the goldfield in 1878 employing two men.

Ten years later he had two hundred under him and was erecting buildings

at the rate of £11,000 to £12,000 per month. (NM: 09/10/1899) By 1886

Ben Toll had been awarded tenders to extend the post office, to erect the

Municipal Chambers, the Occidental and Sunburst hotels. Four of the

town’s most divergently purposed structures were built by him in 1887:

John Surgeon’s Butchery in lower Mosman Street which today is a part

of Peter’s Motors with only its facade intact; E. D. Miles & Co Mining

Figure 10 Lower Mosman Street with E.D. miles Mining Exchange, 1893?

CTADAG: 972402/13

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Exchange in Mosman Street which is today’s Charters Towers Tyre

Centre and soundly intact; and the Excelsior hotel which was destroyed

by fire in 1994; As well there were the facilities built by him for the

Towers Race Club.

His own two storey premises, Toll’s Bazaar, were erected in Gill Street

the following year after a fire burnt all his business stock and plant. (NM:

11/03/1889) This building was removed in 1980 to make way for the

Philp Leong Supermarket. Also in 1888, he erected the Royal Hotel in

Mosman Street, which is today’s Royal Private Hotel, and at the other

end of the street, the Park Hotel that is today’s Park Hotel Motel. This he

followed in 1889 with the rebuilding of Collins Exchange Hotel, also in

Mosman Street and premises used for many years by Murgatroyd & Hall

in Gill Street which is today’s Jensen’s Real Estate.

He erected the Mining Wardens Court House in 1890 in Hodgkinson

Street, which today is a part of the Court House Precinct. This was

followed by W.D. Casey’s residence in Church Street, which today is a

private residence. Also in 1890-1 he built the Queenton State School,

refurbished the Reefer’s Arms Hotel on Mosman Street and in 1895 built

the first two wings of Richmond Hill State School in Baker Street. There

was the School of Mines in 1898? Which remains intact today. (Also see

Appendix: Ben Toll)

But there were other builders who worked locally, as well as from away.

In building contractual terms, Villiers and Johnson, and Wyatt and Gates,

Griffiths and Terry made significant contributions. Thomas Wyatt

established the latter in 1875 with J.W. Gates joining him in 1884. (Wyatt

died in1892 but his wife retained interest while Gates conducted the

business.) Their contract work included the construction of the Queens

hotel in Gill Street in 1887, the Albion hotel alongside the Royal in

Mosman Street in 1889 and the Brilliant hotel in High Street. They were

involved in extending the Occidental hotel as well. In 1890 they built the

Grecian temple styled Wesleyan Church in Gill Street. Of these only the

Brilliant stands as a set of flats on high Street.) In 1891 Wyatt and Gates

built the Australian Joint Stock Bank to a F.D.G. Stanley design which

today is part of the World Theatre precinct. Beside it in 1896, Alan B.

Bright’s Mining Exchange was erected, (today’s Lawsons Restaurant), as

was Smith’s Building in upper Gill Street in the same year. As well,

there were many of the hospital’s buildings, extensions to Aridas and the

Figure 11 The Wesleyan (later Methodist) Church in Gill Street.

CTADAG: 2000107282

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new building for Caledonian House undertaken by them. (Brumby,

1997)

T H E A R C H I T E C T S

The work of W.G. Smith Jr continued beyond the departure of Sellheim.

In 1888 W.G. Smith Jr replaced the Mining Exchange Hotel in Mosman

Street in brick, since removed. In the same year the original Royal Hotel

was replaced with what stands today. (Local architect W.G. Smith had

given the tender Ben Toll). Fifteen months later, W.G. Smith transformed

the Albion Hotel, beside the Royal from a shanty to two-storey splendour.

In a different turn out, the Court House Hotel, so named because it

originally faced the Court House in Hodgkinson Street, was moved to its

present site on Gill Street in 1889. Owner Mr Narracott entrusted the task

of moving it intact from one end of the land to the other, a distance of 300

feet, to Mr Hinton under the supervision of architect W.G. Smith. (It is

the last of the goldfields intact two storey timber hotels.) In the same year

the Brilliant hotel was built to a W.G. Smith and Sons design. (NM:

11/07/1889) The Mining Arcade in Bow Street followed in 1892, to a

design by W.G. Smith & Son when J. McCallum and S.H. Ineson were in

partnership there as mining agents and share brokers.

Watson and McKay’s definitive work on nineteenth century Queensland

architects list a range of men who worked as architects on the Charters

Towers goldfield until 1900. Some bore a background in mining as

surveyors or engineers while others had been builders. Along with those

previously mentioned, their account includes John Ahearn, Harders,

Henry Hubbard, R.W. Kendrick, Joseph Lloyd, David Missingham, John

Potts, Edward Saunders who was renowned for his Salvation Army

Barracks, the one on Charters Towers being constructed in1891, and

William White. Taking up some prominence at this time as well was the

firm of Eyre and Munro. After the Bank of Australasia was erected in

timber on Gill Street in 1885, there followed the first brick bank on the

goldfield, the London Chartered Bank, around 1886, but whose business

premises’ origins remain obscure. Walter Morris Eyre and William Henry

Munro, in partnership from 1887 to 1892 followed the precedent of

London Bank with the design and supervision of the erection of the Bank

of New South Wales beside the Bank of Australasia in 1888. Gill Street

would eventually be graced by five of the goldfield’s eight banks and

become the commercial street of the one square mile. Eyre and Munro’s

Figure 12 Gill Street from the Excelsior hotel. CTADAG: 972401/47

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Ackers building went up almost opposite the Bank of New South Wales

in the same year.

In this time frame other two storey buildings in brick were helping to

ornament the Gill Streetscape. This included the Toll’s Bazaar, the

Courthouse Chambers, Melvin’s Arcade, and further up the street on the

present site of Alfords Motors, Jackson’s building. There would be the

replacement of the savage and primitive in single storey brick as well, the

most notable being the Red Arcade beside police barracks, the Three

Shops opposite, the Twin Shops opposite the hospital and most prominent

in terms of bulk was Samuel Allen’s new warehouse further up from the

police precinct. And yet not all outlets on Gill Street would be

transformed at this time. None of the two storey shop premises stand

today.

The rise of Gill Street to be in a superior commercial position to Mosman

by 1900 was not yet complete. There was the ornament to the streets

rising phoenix like out of the primitive and savage there as well,

including the Club Hotel and Tomlinson’s Criterion House beside

Whiteheads being transformed in 1889. Previously in lower Mosman

Street the Southern Cross and the Australian Hotel had risen up on either

side of the goldfield’s first two-storey hotel, the Gladstone built in 1880.

Thomas Buckland’s “Number Two” building, a two storey double

verandahed commercial premises almost opposite, was put up around this

time. Beside it, in 1891, Eyre and Munro remade Collin’s Exchange hotel

in two storey brick while beside it, the F.D.G. Stanley designed two

storey brick Queensland National Bank replaced their timber premises.

(The timber premises were moved next door to be used as the Union

Bank, which is now the Tourist Information office.) At the same time

Stanley was at work on the design of the Australian Joint Stock Bank

further up Mosman Street, which replaced Burns Philip’s premises, the

former moving to new premises in lower Mosman Street the following

year. This bank received the regard at that time as being “probably the

finest building of its kind outside Brisbane.” (Brumby, 1997: 7) The bank

became the Australian Bank of Commerce and today is the entrance to

the World Theatre Complex.

Beyond the local architects working out of Charters Towers and or

Townsville, were those from “away”. By this time the designs and plans

of Brisbane based government architects had been already erected:

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George S. Connolly in 1884 for the hospital and in 1885, J.J. Clark for

the Courthouse. A.B. Brady would be credited with the new Post Office

on the corner of Gill and Bow Street in 1892, the old two storey timber

premises being moved beside it to become the town hall to take the place

of the original courthouse a Charters Towers. A clock tower was added in

1898.

T H E R O Y A L A R C A D E

From “away” as well came the occasional southern colonied architect.

Reid, Henderson and Smart of Melbourne designed the Bank of

Australasia for Gill Street in 1885, while Mark Day who practised as an

architect and surveyor in Sydney, designed the goldfield’s most delightful

and welcoming of buildings. In 1888 Day received the first of two North

Queensland commissions. (The other was to design a set of offices in

Townsville in 1889.) His Towers’ client was businessman Alexander

Malcolm who intended to replace the set of six savage shops he had

owned from about 1876 onwards, on allotment eight in Section one, with

shops in brick. Day’s design sought to maximise the commercial use of

the allotment - it being relatively narrow but long - with an arcade of

shops, roofed in glass so as to bring in light and coolness, while at the

same time making an aesthetic statement to draw from the street.

Arcades, as Allom and Lovell found, were known in Melbourne and

Sydney, having European beginnings in France in the 1820’s. This one,

named the Royal Arcade, would prove to be unique to provincial

Queensland if not Australia.

It was to be a different sort of commercial space compared to the two and

three shops fronted buildings erected on Gill Street or the bulk of

warehoused premises evident in Whiteheads across the street, Samuel

Allens in Gill Street and later in the rise of new premises for Wright

Heaton, and Burns Philp in lower Mosman Street. Interestingly, the

Royal Arcade’s “best complimentary companion” would come with the

erection Lyall’s Jewellery Shop further up Mosman Street in 1897, it

being at the other end of the building scale and a testament to ornamental

delicacy of singular purpose.

But there were financial problems, as Constanin Mathea, the supervising

architect taking over the contract attested to. Allom and Lovell) Mathea

was fresh from an industrious 1888 on the goldfield in which he was

Figure 13 Royal Arcade, Mosman Street, 1891? CTADAG: 9850/2

Figure 14 Lyall's Jewellery Shop in

Mosman Street, 1915? CTADAG: 997501

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involved in eight building projects including a hall in Mary Street,

additions to the Southern Cross hotel in Bow Street, (removed) the Bell

Tower for the German Church, (intact) a cottage, a shop, store, a villa for

J. Allen and the Day Dawn Ridge hotel. (Watson and McKay: 124) In

the next year Mathea designed the parsonage for the German Church in

Anne Street, which still stands. (NM: 12/06/1889) His contribution in

having the arcade’s construction supervised and completed is of equal

note to Day’s design. Malcolm died a broken man in 1891 and like many

others, Mathea moved onto other ventures beyond Charters Towers. That

their arcade went on to facilitate the activities of the Charters Towers

Stock Exchange from 1889 onwards is testament to the building being a

public space of welcome at the heart of the commercial world of gold

mining on Charters Towers.

2 . 5 P A R T F I V E : T O T H E P E A K

The supplement to the Northern Miner of 9 October 1899, “Charters

Towers the Premier Goldfield of Eastern Australia”, served to articulate

the changes that had taken place since Sellheim’s departure eleven years

earlier: Charters Towers [is] the second largest centre in Queensland.

Her houses are scattered over a considerable area, and her principal

thoroughfares, Gill and Mosman Streets are imposing sights, flanked as

they are with handsome public buildings, stores, hotels, etc. They are lit

with gas and here and there electric light is installed. The Warden, in his

report for 1898, gives the population (from police returns) of the

goldfield as 25,715.

Since almost the beginning of its history the town has had an excellent

Hospital. Schools of Arts were originally established in both Millchester

and Charters Towers that in the latter alone being in existence at present.

Then there is a Chamber of Commerce and Mines to watch over

commercial and mining interests from an industrial point of view, and

Mining Institute. The latter is intended to disseminate knowledge in

everything appertaining to mining and kindred subjects. It contains the

nucleus of a good technical library, and it is the hope of the management

to make it a modern School of Mines.

In 1898 it was estimated that the Charters Towers Municipality had 17

miles of roads and streets, 1,300 dwellings and about 5,000 inhabitants.

The capital value of property within the Municipality was placed at

Figure 15 Gill Street, 1895. CTADAG: 997001/25

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£254,626, and the receipts from all sources at £9,220 18/3.” It was also

noted that the town had four racing clubs, there were numerous athletic

bodies, friendly societies, and a rifle club. As well, there were five

newspapers and within the centre of the town and Church of England,

Roman Catholic, Wesleyan, Presbyterian, Primitive Methodist, Baptist,

and Lutheran churches. (NM: 09/10/1899) Charters Towers was at its

peak.

R E T I C U L A T I O N A N D V I S I O N

Beyond the Sellheim years, two infrastructure activities had helped

Charters Towers to grow to this height. The first and most immediate in

result, but taking some time to implement, was to derive an ample supply

of water from the Burdekin River. The works were completed in April

1891, at a cost of £96,654/11/6 under the direction of the Charters

Towers Water Board, first established in February 1887 (NM:

09/10/1899; Menghetti: 184). Water was then able to be pumped (and

still is) from the river through eight miles of twelve inch cast iron main

into a reservoir on Towers Hill: From the reservoir the water gravitates

to the town, and is reticulated over a considerable area, there being at

the end of 1897 over forty miles of reticulation mains… (NM:

09/10/1899) As a means to making water a reliable resource and to arrest

health issues such as typhoid, the one square mile appeased the

remoteness of the field for its growing populace.

The other development was education. It was always a keenly held vision

shared by town leaders and families, it beginning as a means to catch up

with growing pupil numbers but ultimately driven by Paull’s new century

sentiments. In Sellheim’s time there had only been one school at

Millchester and one on the Towers. The latter struggled into various

expansions on two sites as Boys, Girls, and Infants Schools, in an

endeavour to accommodate increasing pupil numbers. Then the Queenton

School was opened on the other side of the railway in 1891. This, and the

opening of Richmond Hill State School to the north four years later were

indicators that houses are scattered over a considerable area and that the

goldfield’s growth was beyond the one square mile. (Even with the new

schools, the weight of numbers was still keenly felt.) Enrolments for 1900

included:

950 at Charters Towers Boys; Figure 17 Gill Street looking east.

CTADAG: 997001/29

Figure 16 Davey's Vertical Differential Pumping Engine is still beside the river

and is a very rare type. CTADAG986401.

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782 at Charters Towers Girls;

389 at Charters Towers Infants;

1485 at Queenton;

1397 at Richmond Hill;

433 at Millchester.

Parallelling the general preference for a free education, were children sent

to privately funded or church based institutions, as in the case of the

Roman Catholic school, opened in August 1881. (Johnson Files:

Churches) The most well known privately operated schools in 1901

included Thomas Martin’s Grammar School on the corner of Mary and

Church Streets, the Charters Towers High School as conducted in the

M.U. Hall and Miss Howe’s Private School. The Sisters of the Good

Samaritan had conducted St Mary’s Convent High School in High Street

since 1900. It had come into operation in 1892 under the direction of the

Sisters of Mercy and provided the goldfield’s first means for boys and

girls of all denominations to be educated beyond school leaving age.

The local post compulsory void for boys was filled with a technical

emphasis. This had merit; being a practical vision to skill the next

generation of northern mine workers. The establishment of the Charters

Towers School of Mines under the direction of the Department of Mines

took place for that reason. Its construction in Hodgkinson Street by Ben

Toll began in 1898 and cost £1,500. Classes commenced in 1901(?) With

Mr W.A. McLeod as its first director, preliminary subjects included

geology and mineralogy, chemistry, assaying and metallurgy, surveying,

mathematics and mechanical drawing. Fees per class per term amounted

to 15/-. In between was the Technical College which grew out of the

work of the School of Arts on Mosman Street with classes commencing

on 3rd October 1901 By the end of 1901, 250 pupils were on the roll. One

of the State’s first high schools was opened in 1912.

M I N I N G

The town and goldfield were at their peak in mining and milling sense

when 219,572 fine ounces were produced from 209,802 tons of ore in

1899. (Menghetti, 1984:24) However, half of the returns for that year

were from the treatment of sands, the waste products from the mills,

which had helped to treble annual gold returns since 1888. In that year

David Brown, on behalf of the Charters Towers Pyrites Works erected a

Figure 18 The Rainbow line of mines with the eastern end of Towers Hill in the background. CTADAG: 200091328

Figure 19 Mills United Mine at the top of

Deane Street. CTADAG: 997001/26

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large chlorination works on the eastern slopes of Towers Hill at a cost of

£10,000. Then in 1892 the Australian Gold Recovery Co. purchased the

right to use the McArthur-Forrest cyanide process. The company, with

£500 value in machinery including 12 vats, proved more cost efficient so

that by the end of 1897 there were 60 to 70 cyaniding works in operation

along the goldfield’s creeks using pumps etc with an estimated average

value of £300. (Brumby, 2001: 58) Cyaniding outstripped the works on

Towers Hill and ultimately led to the Mosman Street murder tragedy in

July 1901 out of which Brown was found guilty and executed. Today the

remains of the chlorination works are of great significance. Most of the

cyanide heaps along with the mullock heaps that once characterised the

townscape have been removed.

Gold production growth was paralleled by population growth as when the

Warden reported the annual population in 1898, 1899 and 2000 to be

25,715, 26,215 and then 26,780. A census of the Kennedy District in

1901 straw polled 22, 259 living within a twelve-mile radius of the post

office, having increased by 8,500 since 1891. (Townsville had 19,059

people at this time in 1901 when Queensland’s total was 502,892.)

(Brumby, 2001: 42)

While gold returns peaked in 1899, mining production did not decline

immediately as tons of ore put through the mills continued to rise in a

peak of 247,481 tons in 1903, waver, and then dramatically fall in 1907.

Ten years later a paltry 19,319 tons were put through the mills. From the

late 1880s through to 1906, the work of the mines, their shafts, their head

frames, tramways, dams and mullock heaps became an intrusive feature

of the one square mile as they sought the reefs at depth. Where on Jack’s

map of 1878 only one reef was shown within the one square mile, their

surface presence became immaterial as the Day Dawn P.C. proved the

reefs continued at depth. As the dip of the reefs was to the north and east

so the vertical shafts advanced someway across the one square mile.

Legislative changes in 1886 and 1889 allowed for mining within the one

square mile and its reserves. (Menghetti: 118) The Boys School Reserve

was mined soon after with no return, as was under the Church of England

in upper Mosman Street. As a block to the Day Dawn P.C., Mills Day

Dawn United sunk a shaft at the top end of Deane Street. This was to be

the showpiece mine of the goldfield owned by Thomas Mills, of which no

evidence remains today. It was sunk as a block to the three shafts used by

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the nearby Day Dawn Block and Wyndham. Two of these shafts are still

open, one in upper Deane Street and the other off Stubley Street. As well,

the Day Dawn reef was mined further west by a number of companies.

Of these, the Day Dawn Consolidated sunk a shaft in King Street, which

with Mills United, proved the closest mines to the main streets. (In fact

some of deeper shafts were right under Gill and Mosman.) Among others

close by, there was Plants Day Dawn in Marion Street, which is still

partially open, as is the Day Dawn Freehold Extended Mine in upper

Oxford Street.

After the Brilliant reef was found, a series of mines were sunk to work it,

mostly from just beyond the one square mile and before the railway line

in Queenton. (Within the one square mile, opposite the Girls School in

Aland Street there was the Brilliant Freehold.) It included the Brilliant,

the Brilliant and St George (still an open shaft at the end of Hodgkinson

Street) the Brilliant Extended and the Brilliant Block (as well, an open

shaft in use by Charters Towers Gold Mines in Hodgkinson Street as

ventilation and safety exit.) Still open too is the Brilliant Deeps in Park

Street, which proved the deepest mine sunk on the goldfield, going down

to 2,558 feet. (Menghetti: 204) Beyond the railway, mining was even

thicker on the ground with few remains allowed to remind. Much of the

mullock was removed to rebuild the rail line to Mount Isa in the 1960’s.

The only open shafts that mark Queenton as a significant mining area are

the shafts of the New Queen Central No. 2, and the Queens Cross

Extended mine. There are however, the remains of the Enterprise Mill

and others.

The municipality integrated mining and milling with Victorian

acceptance and unknowing resignation. Its hazards and dangers as when

gelignite in the Mills Day Dawn magazine exploded mysteriously in

December 1897, shattering the glass in Mosman Street shop fronts, or as

when men and even innocent children died in mines and mills, was

somehow accommodated. (QGG 1900 (July - Sept)). Mine manager

James Carroll believed he spoke on behalf of all when thinking it a pity

there were not 50 Brilliant and St Georges [the mine he managed] to cut

up the roads a bit more than at present. (Applause) He did not think the

people objected to them cutting up the roads as long as they distributed

the gold, found work for the men and food and homes for the women and

children. (Brumby, 2001: 33)

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C O M M E R C I A L L I F E

The one square mile absorbed most of its other industries. Sellheim’s

summary of 1887 included two iron foundries, several engineering works,

chlorination plants, brick works, gas works, four steam saw mills and

brewery on the goldfield. Likewise, Marsland’s sell of the goldfield to

English investors in 1892 described the principal industries other than

those directly concerned in the production of gold to include eight banks,

foundries, saw mills, timber yards breweries and aerated water factories:

There are a great number of hotels and stores of various grades, some of

them the best of their kind to be found in the colony. There was a

racecourse, and a stock exchange, the members of which meet twice daily,

once at noon being members only and at 8pm in an open hall when the

public is admitted. (Marsland)

Some of the foundries, engineering works and sawmills steam mills,

including Ben Toll’s saw mill in Mary Street, beside E.D. Miles’

residence were cheek to jowl with residential living near the main streets.

The working businesses of water factories, blacksmiths, coachbuilders,

printers, timber yards, fuel depots and stables etc. were there too, having

been relegated to the back and cross streets in juxtaposition to the

commercial facades dominating the two main streets. This included King

and Rutherford off Mosman Street, Bow, Deane and Church, Ryan and

Hodgkinson off Gill Street.

Through the years to 1901 and some time beyond, there was some sense

of consolidation of commercial activity within the one square mile’s

heart, making Charters Towers broad based, self sufficient and

cosmopolitan in tone. This was evident along the full length of Mosman

Street from Towers Street in the south to Jane Street as well as the full

length of Gill Street. The latter was given over to commercial outlets its

full length to beyond the railway station at Queenton where that township

boasted its own post office, fire brigade etc. Further down was the

separate township of Millchester with mines, mills, hotels, shops and a

population large enough for pupil numbers at its state school to peak in

1906 with an annual average attendance of 368.1.

The gradual shift of light industry to the rear of Mosman and Gill etc

made for a loose mix of working industries to operate beside residences, a

feature, which continues to this day. At the other end of commercial

Figure 20 Some of the prominent men of

Charters Towers. CTADAG: 972438/10

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output, there developed a financial district of sorts. It was centred on the

activities of the Charters Towers Stock Exchange in Alexander’s

Malcolm’s Royal Arcade where three calls were made on each day of the

working week. This district reached into Mosman and Upper Gill Streets

where most of exchange’s members worked. This included the mining

agents, sharebrokers, and men drawn from the mining and the business

people of the one square mile with marked investments in the mines.

(Street Directory, 1903)

And there were the eight banks on Mosman and Gill, where the gold was

deposited and secured, prior to its departure to the coast under

supervision of the bank’s managers. And with overseas investments being

a cornerstone to mining development, access to the telegraph office in

Bow Street was as important as the day to dayness of mine management,

stock calls and meetings. Much of the latter would have been venued in

the hotels on Mosman Street. Collins Mining Exchange Hotel beside the

Queensland National Bank had some prominence in this, as remembered

when it was later lost to fire in 1926: wealthy men, managing directors of

the big mining companies [sitting] at the same long table as the truckers

in their mines, lawyers, bankers, doctors, woodcutters, engine drivers,

and all classes talking freely of the dip in the reef, or the likelihood of a

shaft “bottoming” or “going through a blank”. (Brumby, 1997: 62)

Two other precincts developed during these years as well. The goldfields

doctors and dentists created a medical district when they sought the use

of residences for their practices in proximity to the Hospital. Dr Moore’s

dental surgery was in Wheeler’sHouse on Gill Street.

And the Chinese storekeepers were relegated to premises between the

Municipality and the Queenton Railway Station. In 1898 the goldfield’s

Chinese population included 60 miners and 600 working as gardeners or

in business. By 1903 there were nine Chinese stores along this part of

Gill Street, most having a connection to the vegetable gardens tended to

by colleagues along the goldfield’s creeks, principally in the Millchester

area.

I N T H E S U B U R B S

Just beyond the main streets, principally to the west and north of town

centre as well as beyond, there arose an arbitrary mix of miner’s cottages

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and residential villas. The latter accommodated ordinary families and

served to dominate the suburban landscape. Peter Bell describes these

cottages as being built in timber and roofed in iron and either having a

core of two or four rooms, being near square, with a longitudinal central

corridor. (Bell: 68) When constructed, many were prefabricated by the

likes of Ben Toll, Griffiths and Terry, and Richard Craven thus giving a

uniformity and familiarity of style. (Bell: 135)

On the other hand John Surgeon’s residence in Anne Street, Alan B.

Bright’s cottage on the corner of Ryan and High Streets and John

Wallstab’s in Rutherford Street exemplify strong elements of space,

decoration, design and character being put into houses for the well to the

do: the business men and self made mining men. Wyatt and Gates built

many villas around this time for this purpose. For stock and station agent

Robert Russell they built an imposing pyramidal roofed residence, which

is still on the corner of Anne and Church. There was A.Paradies’ villa,

which is still on Hackett Terrace, as well as villas in unknown locations

for E.B. Francis, and F. Caseley. Their designers are not known. Around

the same time, Ben Toll built W.D. Casey’s residence in Church Street,

which also still stands. By the late 1880’s the population had crossed over

Mosman Creek beyond the one square mile to take up residency on

Richmond Hill, which by 1887, a local newspaper suggested was

becoming the Potts Point or Toorak of Charters Towers. Butcher Joe

Harvey’s Towervilla still faces Centenary Park at the western end of the

“Hill.” Later Joe Millican’s “Warden’s Camp”, today’s Advent House,

was built there, as more than likely was J. Allen’s villa as designed by

Mathea.

With the rise of the residential villa there was the exception and the

exceptional. The former was made manifest when Ay Ot Lookout, a two

storey, asymmetrically designed timbered villa on the corner of Church

and Hodgkinson Street was built in 1896. It remains standing, displaying

striking interiors and construction techniques. (NQR Christmas Number,

1896) The architect is claimed to have been mining surveyor William

White. Yet the owner and builder of such a magnificent house are not,

known although there is some suggestion the client was named Thomas

Smith who had a penchant for gambling. (Watson and McKay: 205)

The exceptional took place in 1889 when mining magnate E.H.T. Plant

had a new residence erected on King Street to the design of Townsville

Figure 21 E.H.T. Plant's Bonnie Dundee Mill. CTADAG.

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and Charters Towers based brother-architects, Walter and Oliver

Tunbridge. With work more well known in the former centre, they had

some busy years on the Towers including in 1888: villas in Mosman and

Ryan Street, the Waverley hotel, Murgatroyd and Hall’s building in 1889

and the Wesleyan Church in 1890. Plant named his residence

“Thornburgh” in honour of his mother, it being her maiden name, with

Townsville builders Page & Sherlow contracted to build it. The luxury

was overwhelming.

Yet the “simply magnificent and second to none in Queensland”

overlooked the makings (in part) of the man’s success. Right nearby was

the mill with a substantial dam area that had helped to make his second

fortune. The mix of the magnificent with the sight and sound of

machinery was without irony. Like the rest of the goldfielders he knew

the means to wealth beneath and alongside the one square mile justified

the ends.

2 . 6 P A R T S I X : B E Y O N D T H E P E A K

In 1884, Northern Miner owner and editor Thadeus O’Kane, urged the

Municipal Council to set aside breathing spaces for the town: to find sites

within the one square mile for a public market and a few open spaces to

serve as a relief to the hum and drum of mining and milling. That same

year, eighteen acres were gazetted as a recreation reserve and named

Lissner Park. It contains four signs of the times of when the goldfield

went from peak to decline.

The first decade of the twentieth century began in the “diminution” of

gold mining returns. This then lost out to another meaning as the Great

War took away the last of the miners and the last mines closed. Yet the

years to 1914 were not without a future. Charles William Smith, who was

another son of William George Snr, worked here as an architect until

1922. Watson and Mckay first mark him as a partner of the family firm

from 1891 onwards, when he designed and supervised the construction of

St Mary’s Convent in High Street. The design of Alan B. Bright’s Mining

Exchange in Mosman Street followed in 1896 when in the same year he

designed a set of four shops in Upper Gill Street almost besides the

Catholic Church. This building like the previous mentioned, remains

standing today. In 1898 the second St Columba’s Church was designed

by Smith, presumably by adding to the core of the1880 building a set of

Figure 22 Mount Carmel, 1915? CTADAG: 972401/186.

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parallel wings and a rear, making it into a cross shape. (Brumby, 1997)

This was removed and replaced in 1974. The Columba Catholic Church

Bell Tower however sill stands. In 1901 he designed the new school

building and residence for the Christian Brothers, which were erected the

next year near the racecourse (NM: 5/10/1901; 25/08/1902)

C.W. Smith then contributed to the re-formation of some of the one

square mile’s most interesting retail outlets. This included the design of

Siemon’s new timbered premises in Queenton in 1901 and in the

following year, Ward’s blue store in rendered brick with ornamental

teapot on top, on the corner Gill and Craven. Both are intact. (NM:

2/4/1901,25/8/1902) In 1904, new premises were erected for grocer

Foxlee on the corner of Church and Gill, by architect and contractors

unknown; while Carson’s furniture store had been opened on Mosman

Street two years previous. (Brumby, 1997) The latter showed something

of a new style in commercial premises with its plain face brickwork and

use of contrasting textures being best described as executed in the

Federation free style. (It is partially intact on Gard’s lane intersection

with Mosman) The exceptional building beyond the peak was evident in

1909 when the Queens hotel in upper Gill was demolished to make way

for new premises owned by Alfred Daking Smith. It was jarringly

different to any building previously erected in the one square mile, with a

bulk, shape, lines and texture that make it an Edwardian commercial

landmark of great note. Although in fairness, its prominence was as

equally due to the business acumen of its first owner whose residence,

“Aldborough”, still stands on the corner of Deane and Hodgkinson.

Daking Smiths building is intact and is currently in use by Target

Country.

M U S I C A N D E N T E R T A I N M E N T S

Architect W. G. Smith Jr. first tabled drawings for a band rotunda in

Lissner Park in July 1889. The rotunda became the ultimate venue for the

town’s bands, their roots being in making music outside the hotels on Gill

and Mosman Streets. It showed a maturing in the tastes of goldfielders

with longer leisure hours as well as being indicative of growth in the

paltry park’s plantings.

Bands also performed indoor, along with local and visiting singers,

instrumentalists and actors, wanting to showcase their talents and

Figure 23 Towers concert Band, 1919. CTADAG: 986103/5

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entertain goldfields nighttime’s audiences. The School of Arts built in

upper Mosman Street around 1883 and since removed, was the prime

venue for this. It was supplemented with the Theatre Royal at the rear of

the Excelsior hotel when it was designed by David Missingham and

erected in 1893. (McKay and Watson: 126) The halls of various

Societies complimented these larger venues as well. They were scattered

through the one square mile and used not only for music but also for

Society meetings, practices, dances and even as polling places in local

elections. Apart from the MU Hall in Gill Street and the Masonic

Temple in Ryan, there was the Forester’s Hall and the G.U.O.O.F. halls

in Aland Street, (1893) the Hibernian Hall on the corner of Boundary and

Mary Streets, (1899) the Pioneer Hall in King Street and the Apollo Hall

near the Waverley Hotel. The only timber hall to continue its use to date

is the Australian Natives Association Hall, built in 1893 on the corner of

Deane and Jackson, which is now known as the Buffalo Hall.

The exception was made evident in one of the last of the goldfields’

buildings to be built for entertainment purposes. This was the private

premise of the Londoners Club erected in Ryan Street around 1900,

which some time later was renamed the Civic Club. It still stands:

“The gold field’s elite: the mine owners, mine managers and influential

businessmen, graced the magnificent interior in a members only, men

only, club that catered for a variety of recreational tastes. Card games

were played in small private rooms on one side while a two tabled

billiards room dominated interest and space on the other. A bar at the

rear provided the necessary drinks and victuals. Little has changed in

these rooms since, although the name has changed to the Civic Club and

women are now welcomed as members. (Brumby:1998:34)

As well the finer arts, there was an even greater interest and involvement

in sport which included from the earliest days, horse racing, athletics,

crickets, wrestling and boxing, to be joined later by football, tennis,

shooting, cycling and swimming, among others. The prime sporting

venues included an athletics reserve and racecourse on Richmond Hill,

the latter replacing the first crude track laid out where the railway station

was later erected. And there was the Showgrounds. Facilities there were

somewhat improved when the TPA&M erected a new hall and

grandstand in 1903. The hall has vanished but the grandstand is still being

used, and was refurbished in 1999 by the City Council.

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The goldfields’ swimmers made do with Plant’s Dam until the arrival of

architect Walter Hunt. Walter Hunt brought a final freshness beyond the

peak of the goldfield. In 1899 his first work was to convert the town’s old

reservoir in Elizabeth Street beside Mosman Creek into a public

swimming bath. The wash of water over Walter was further felt when he

designed the Commonwealth fountain, which was erected in the centre of

Lissner Park and opened on the first day of the new nation in 1901. (This

second icon of the park was restored by the City Council in 2001.)

In 1910, a memorial to those who volunteered to fight in South Africa,

which at the time of the Commonwealth was still being waged, was

opened to great acclaim. The Boer War Memorial Kiosk is the third of the

park icons and one acknowledged as a landmark in the first decade of

twentieth century Australian architecture. (Architecture Australia,

January 2000) F.H. Jorgensen was responsible for the design of the kiosk

that included an unusual bell shaped roof with cast iron framing and

column supports. The bulk of the metal work was carried out across the

road at Watson’s engineering foundry, which today is the site of the

Parkview Units.

Then in 1903 Hunt transformed the savage and primitive of the Northern

Miner office, while beyond the one square mile to be in proximity to the

mines, he designed the Ambulance Building also in Gill Street. (Brumby,

1998: 40) While both buildings were rooted in Victorian vision, Hunt

seemed to seek a cityscape for his works, a hope that the Towers would

loom larger. They had bulk and height and curiously, lacked what all

other buildings had given to the streets: a verandah over the footpath to

cool interiors and the blow of customers coming by. By 1902, all

buildings in Mosman Street, from Jackson to Mary Streets as well as the

length of both sides of Gill to Church had them, with the first police

barracks being the possible exception at that time.

M O V I N G O N

The change in the goldfield’s circumstance was finally realised when the

big mines could no longer afford to operate and so closed one by one.

This included the Day Dawn Freehold in early 1911, the Day Dawn

Block and Wyndham No. 3, in 1912 and the Day Dawn P C No. 3 Mine

in 1913. Into the war years, the Brilliant and St George Mine closed in

Figure 25 The Old Northern Miner Office. CTADAG.

Figure 24 Commonwealth Procession in Gill Street. CTADAG: 972401/99.

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1914, the Brilliant Block ceased work in 1916 as did the New Queen

Central No. 2. The bulk of mining infrastructure was then removed to

new mining fields, sold for scrap or left to waste. By the end of the Great

War, the goldfield’s roll of honour was long, but there was no swell of

surviving soldiers returning to the goldfield. Remembrance of their deeds

in war would be embodied in the placement of two trophied German field

guns in Lissner Park between the fountain and the kiosk, to become the

fourth icon of the place in decline.

During these times, the miners, and other workers left the goldfield with

their families to seek employment primarily in the service industries of

Townsville, in the sugar cane growing areas of the lower Burdekin or out

west on the Cloncurry mining field. Families from the Towers also

cleared a number of pockets of rainforest on the Atherton Tablelands for

farming purposes. Tailing the thousands who left, were many of the

goldfield’s surplus residences, principally miner’s cottages, which were

dismantled, moved on rail wagons and re-erected. Many found their way

to parts of Townsville, especially in South Townsville and Railway Estate

as well to Ayr and Home Hill. That the rail line also ran to the west to the

Cloncurry mining field, and southwest to the sheep district of Winton,

meant they benefited as well from the demise of the Charters Towers

Goldfield.

The scatter of the goldfield population that stayed was made more

pronounced as innumerable blocks of land were laid bare beside those

still occupied. The suburb of Mosman Park was a particular example of

this, where whole streets lost their houses. Bureau of Census and

Statistics figures show the population who stayed fell somewhat

dramatically before and after the Great War:

1901 – 22,059

1911 – 18,345

1921 – 5,682

1933 – 6,978 (An Australian Post Office History: Charters

Towers: 14)

As well, larger buildings, which were needed elsewhere, were removed

through the 1920’s and 1930’s. This included many of the villa

residences on Richmond Hill and some of the hotels. Halls too were

moved and most likely included the Pioneer Hall, the Forester’s Hall and

Figure 26 The Water board Building in Mary Street. Only the steps remain.

CTADAG: 984602/5

ONE SQUARE MILE 2


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the hall at the show grounds. Known removals to Townsville from

Charters Towers include the Rising Sun hotel at Hermit Park and

McLeod’s dentistry, both since lost, and the second racecourse

grandstand, which is still intact at Hughenden

S T A Y I N G O N

Part of the pruning of the one square mile was done with fire, when hotels

in particular burnt to the ground in a slow succession. This included

Collins Exchange in 1926 and the Miner’s hotel in 1927. The Sunburst

and the Eureka were lost in the 1960’s, the Central in 1971, while the top

floor of the Crown hotel burnt in 1982. The Sovereign was completely

lost that year but rebuilt. The last to burn to the ground was the Excelsior

hotel in 1994.

Other hotels were lost through other circumstances including removal

including the Albion hotel, the Mining Exchange hotel, and the

Occidental hotel and opposite it, the White Horse hotel. The latter was

rebuilt as Queensland’s first tavern. There was the loss of the four hotels

in lower Mosman Street with the Rix built on the site of the Australian.

Fire also removed the set of timber shops in upper Gill Street between the

Courthouse hotel and Caledonian House in 1929. The two storeyed

Courthouse Chamber was destroyed in a petrol bomb/suicide pact in

1933. (Brumby, 1997) While in other circumstances, the School of Arts

was removed, as was Jacksons building and the Water Board offices in

Mary Street. Only the entrance set of steps remain on the block in Mary

Street and is a testament to the removal and recycling of many of the one

square mile’s buildings.

2 . 7 P A R T S E V E N : T H E D W I N D L I N G Y E A R S

By 1921, the one square mile with a continuing bleed of infrastructure,

and being populated by only 5,682 people, was quite capable of being

described as a living ghost town. Numerically, it was not much bigger

than when Jardine set down 4,500 people to be living there at the end

1872, while its key industry of gold mining had largely gone. The follow-

on year of 1922 was noteworthy to the residents still living there as it

marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of Charters Towers. The

glory of having been one the richest goldfields of Australia, and

Queensland’s second city, was a memory in opposition to what the

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town’s people thought it was going to be. Yet there was not much

evidence in the years to come, even with the advent of it booming as a

garrison town during the Second World War, that new times ever

eventuated.

At a grass roots level there would always be the voids, the places between

the buildings that had lost their content to fire, removal or demolition.

The timbered premises on the corner of Gill and Mosman were removed

without replacement in the 1960’s to become a void of note for the next

two decades. And while the new Stan Pollards building filled part of that

corner, the car park beside it still counts as an empty space waiting to be

filled. Further up Mosman Street, Carney’s Used Car Yard helped to fill

the void left with the removal of timbered premises there. The grounds of

the Occidental waited until 1979 for the Commonwealth Bank to be built

there, while what was once Collins Exchange hotel later became a park.

And after being removed by fire in 1994, the site of the Excelsior hotel

still waits to be replaced.

Through the dwindling years above stump level, much of the savage and

primitive were still in practical use along Gill and Mosman Streets. In

fact timbered buildings were the norm below Buckland’s Number One as

far as Mary Street, as well as in upper Mosman Street where there were

the final remains of the first milled timbered buildings used on the

goldfield. (The exception here was the Commercial hotel, erected in

1887.) There were pockets of timber along Gill Street to Church Street

which was still evolving into more lasting materials well into the 1980’s

when the last of the timbered premises, the Medical Hall, in front the

M.U. Hall was replaced with an arcade of concrete masonry shops.

Little building activity took place in these years, the exception in terms of

significance was when the primitive and savage of upper Gill Street was

replaced some years earlier by one of the first cinemas on Charters

Towers: the Olympia. It was built as an open-air theatre with a high

featureless facade and is with a still unknown building history. It was also

time-on from 1901, when all the buildings from Whiteheads on Mosman

Street, down Gill Street to the Bank of New South Wales were still made

of timber. Daking Smiths was the first in brick in 1909, which was slowly

followed by the Honey Pot Building some time before 1921 and beside it

in 1929, Hudson’s building for Peek, Gray, Gofton and Kluge. (Brumby,

1997)

Figure 27 Gold mining never really ceased as this image from 1935

attests to. The Venus Mill operated

into the 1960's. CTADAG: 972401/135

ONE SQUARE MILE 2


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A D A P T A T I O N

The exceptional in the dwindling years was the adaptation of buildings

and premises for new century functions. This was first exemplified on

the main streets when cinemas first opened their doors on the one square

mile. Aside from the purposed built Olympia in Gill Street, there was the

Regent in what was once Samuel Allens warehouse. There was the open

air Superlative at the rear of timber premises further up, while the Theatre

Royal became both a movie house and the town’s only theatre. The

Lyceum was in the School of Arts; and the Tivoli was in old shop

premises further down. Accompanying cinema as a new addition to

twentieth century life was the rise of the motorcar. Mechanical work,

petrol and vehicle sales were adapted to available premises as well, the

principal outlets on the main streets being R.W. Stanger in Mosman

Street, Ralph Gofton, and the Central Service Station, both in Gill Street.

The latter is now Alford Motors and is noteworthy for its off-the-street-

onto-the-footpath garage facilities.

Playing a more significant role was the adaptation of villa residences for

use as private schools. This first took place when Thornburgh College

was opened for boys in 1919 using the former residence of E.H.T. Plant.

This was followed by Yelvertoft, and being possibly previously known as

Hanover house, was opened as Blackheath College for girls. The

Brotherhood of St Barnabas opened All Souls School in 1920 and this

was followed by St Gabriel’s’ taking over of Joe Millican’s villa on

Richmond Hill as a girls school. That all of the schools including

Columba Catholic College, continue in use in various amalgamations, is a

testament to the first value of the adaptation of the villa residences etc.

(Unfortunately, Yelvertoft was lost to fire in the late 1980’s) It also

speaks for the flow-on value for Charters Towers to rise out of the mining

days and to take on the new task of providing schooling for children from

the bush and to become the education centre of North Queensland. Other

adaptations of residences were less flattering especially when the likes of

Paradies and Surgeon’s villa residences were carved into flats. This

happened also when the likes of the Royal and Brilliant hotels were

converted for long-term accommodation purposes.

W O R L D W A R T W O

The outbreak of the Pacific theatre of World War Two in December

1941, impacted directly on Charters Towers. Its relative proximity to the

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frontline, coupled to its safe position away from the coast, was regarded

by military planners as exploitable attributes. This the American Air force

followed through on when it directed more airfields to be built in North

Queensland to defend Australia and to start the fight back against the

Japanese. For this purpose, the old landing field at Corinda to the north of

Richmond Hill was transformed by Australian personnel to become the

major aerodrome of the district. Its two runways and infrastructure were

set up to support bombers conducting raids on Papua and New Guinea.

Yet it was less than two kilometres from the Richmond Hill School. In

defence of the airfield, anti aircraft emplacements and search light

batteries were established around it, including at least one on the sporting

field at Thornburgh College. Elsa Powell remembers a radar installation

in the streets near Thonburgh. (The chimney from Brown’s Pyrites Works

on the end of Towers Hill was removed at this time to ensure safe

landings at Corinda).

Other injections of military activity followed. An inland fuel depot was

established at Queenton. The Australian Air Force erected their own

airfield, principally for maintenance activities, to the north of the town at

Breddan. An Air Force replenishment centre was built over the western

side of Towers Hill to store armaments using old mining tunnels and

mullock heaps to great effect. At Wellington, an army workshop was put

into operation to fix and maintain equipment. An Australian Army

training camp was established at the old township of Sellheim beside the

Burdekin River, as was a Detention Barracks to the north of the town

near the road to the Manure Depot. Residents also remember American

Negro troops transiting in tents erected on Lissner Park.

Being safe from the coast resulted in a host of hospitals to be established

here and nearby. The Americans took over St Gabriel’s School while the

Australian General Hospital (116 AGH) took over Mount Carmel (the

former Christian Brothers High School) and All Souls School. Pupils

from these were moved on: St Gabriel’s retired to a hotel at Richmond,

All Souls camped at the old Dalrymple township and Mount Carmel

moved to the Retreat, Casey’s old villa in Church Street with lessons

conducted in the Park Hotel.

The railway and the post office cranked up activates to accommodate the

transport and communication needs of nearly 35,00 troops stationed here

or passing through, while the City Council struggled with supplying

ONE SQUARE MILE 2


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adequate water and maintaining roads and bridges. During these years,

the most interesting adaptation of the one square mile’s buildings, aside

from what the private schools had done, took place when a substantial

proportion of main street buildings were taken over by the military. The

prime purpose was to store war material: foodstuffs and the like. Bill

Henderson is told that this included at some time, use of the Horticultural

Hall (formerly Whiteheads) and the Theatre Royal. As well, Elsa Powell

remembers the timber buildings below Bucklands Number Two Building

to Elizabeth Street being put to use. Australian Army Ordinance are also

known to have used parts of the Masonic Halls in Ryan Street and at

Queenton, as well as under Richmond Hill School, and Millchester

School and in the Southern Cross hotel.

Other places were taken over for entertainment purposes. The American

Air Force took over Philip’s residence in Aland Street as an Officer’s

Club, while Caledonian House in Gill Street was made into a PX for

ordinary airmen. Australians frequented the Australian Comforts Funds

facilities established in Ross’s Corner Building while the one square

mile’s hotels attracted particular unit groups: American Negro troops

presumably drank at the Occidental, Breddan air force staff at the

Sunburst, the Americans at the Crown, the Waverley and the Excelsior.

On common ground were the dance halls including those adapted at the

rear of the town hall, on the second floor of the ACF, later in the Theatre

Royal and perhaps the Horticultural Hall? The cinemas were especially

popular as were visits into the homes of the civilians who stayed on

during the war years. As well, there were troops who connected to the

various lodges and churches.

With troops on the streets, aeroplanes above, four air raid shelters in Gill

Street, air raid sirens and even the packing of parachutes in the A.N.A.

Hall, Charters Towers was war-sieged town. The cafes were the domains

of the military as were the laundries that grew up to meet military

demands. (Bill Henderson Interview 07/07/1996; Elsa Powell

Conversation 15/10/2001 and others)

S O U L S E A R C H I N G

After the war, the population rose bumpingly out of the low point of 1921, yet by the centenary of Charters Towers in 1972, it had grown by only 1,847 people including aborigines in 50 years:

ONE SQUARE MILE 2


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1921 – 5,682

1933 – 6,978

1947 – 7,561

1954 – 6,961

1961 – 7,633

1966 – 7,755

1971 – 7,529

(An Australian Post Office History: Charters Towers: 14)

The after war years proved as anticlimactic as those previous, and served

to confirm the dwindling years to be the one square miles’ theme for the

full total of its second half century. War’s effects took some years to

dissipate, as rationing slowly stopped and the town’s roads and bridges

etc were put back to proper working order. Military facilities at Corinda,

Sellheim, and Breddan and at the Replenishment Centre continued in use

for some time, and as they were withdrawn from service, (Breddan in

1948, the Rep Centre in the early 1960’s and Sellheim in the early

1980’s.) their buildings were put up for auction. Many were moved away

including onto surrounding properties, while many were adapted for new

use on Charters Towers. The Wellington Workshops were used to

remodel the centre portion of the Regent Theatre, which had been partly

lost to fire during the war. This cantilevered roof section is an unusual

feature. (NM: 04/02/1948) The pony club continues to use of one of

buildings from Sellheim, while the Services Bowls Club at Richmond

Hill use a building from the Replenishment Centre. The James Hall at the

Showgrounds was from Corinda.

Substitute service industry as defined by railways, the opening of

institutions such as Eventide in 1929 and Mosman Hall in 1954, a Royal

flying Doctor base for a time, a Seismograph Station in 1957, together

with growth in boarding schools, and industries linked to the land, made

for token changes to the one square mile as the population trend attests to.

The changes were small, making the town barely able to maintain itself

rather than make progress. Most evident was that at the end of first life

cycles during the Peak Years, the old could be replaced with the new. As

for example, a new cemetery replaced the old in 1895. A new rail bridge

of iron over the Burdekin River replaced the one of timber in 1898. A

new hospital operating theatre was opened in 1899. The 1877 police

barracks were replaced in 1910. Yet in the second half-century, there

would be longer waits for the other cycles. This was the case when it took

Figure 28 Gill Street with Toll's building

in the 1940's? CTADAG: 20008702

ONE SQUARE MILE 2


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until the 1970’s for water supply infrastructure to be replaced and

upgraded, and for a new fire station to be erected. The police station was

only upgraded after it was burnt to the ground in the 1990 and the

Ambulance went into new facilities in 1996.

Yet, when some of the banks and some of the churches and some of the

businesses took on new cycles, in the late 1960’s and 1970’s their

approaches were without empathy with the past. This included the new

Methodist Church in 1969, the Baptist Church, the Bank of New South

Wales in 1970, the ANZ Bank and the new St Columba’s in 1974. The

demolition of Toll’s Building to make way for Philip Leong’s

Supermarket in 1980 was an exceptional loss in terms of scale.

2 . 8 P A R T E I G H T : F I N D I N G T H E H E R I T A G E

The opening of the centenary fountain in Lissner Park during the town’s

centenary celebrations, served as a watershed for the next quarter century

plus one. It embodied a look forward without a look back, given that

Walter Hunt’s gift to the park in 1901 was still there, and if recognised,

was deemed out place in the final fling of the twentieth century. On the

other hand in the same year, there were those positively challenged by the

prospect of reviving a derelict building in Mosman Street called the Stock

Exchange Building, which was then rented out to old men. They were

part of the town’s Historical Society whose members went on to form the

first branch of the Queensland National Trust. They looked back to find

the past was worth embracing and worthy of remembering. The

building’s restoration under the supervision of architect Don Roderick

opened in 1975 and was the exception to the dwindling years. So it

marked a new way of looking at the place once defined as the one square

mile. By 1981 the National Estate listed the inner core of the one square

mile as a Conservation Area of national significance and separately listed

within it, eleven structures, as well as the Venus Mill at Millchester.

In the follow on years, the National Trust served to arrest the loss of what

was finally understood to be heritage of national importance, although it

proved somewhat burdensome as more buildings were added to its care.

Yet the community was supportive and when tested, sided with old bricks

and timber rather than the gush of modernity. The threat to move the post

office was fought and won, as was the call to modernise the replacement

police station in 1990. The revival of mining at Mount Leyshon in the

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1980’s, and new finds at Thalanga and later Pajingo proved an economic

boon to the town, with not only caught up in the maintenance cycles but

also development. The water supply system was duplicated, the town was

finally drought proofed and the bitumen in suburban streets was poured

from gutter to gutter.

And in time, both city and shire councils buoyed by mining based

progress, would express their support for the means for the town to

embrace the past for the sake of its future. The Dalrymple Council

showed this with the flattering new lines of its new offices erected in

lower Gill Street in 1994, it being reminiscent of the Royal Arcade. And

in 1996 the exceptional took place when the Australian Joint Stock Bank

was restored as a façade to the construction of the World Theatre

Complex at its rear. Yet it would be the everydayness of the one square

mile as administered by the City Council that would embody the most

sincere commitment and greatest hope. And that would be to incorporate

developmental policy and advice sympathetic to the town’s heritage: that

it would monitor sites and ensure they were looked after and valued by

the whole community. In 2001, the City Council re-found Walter Hunt’s

fountain and restored it. Like the finding of the Stock Exchange Arcade,

it was a telling moment and spoke of the town’s finally found fibre to

showcase the one square mile as a living and well loved history for the

whole world.

2 . 9 B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Note the use of abbreviation used within the text includes *CTADAG: Charters

Towers and Dalrymple Archives Group; *NA: Northern Advocate; * NM: Northern

Miner; * NMR: Northern Mining Registe; *NQR: North Queensland Register; *RM:

Ravenswood Miner.

A Allom and Lovell, The Stock Exchange Arcade, Charters Towers. [Draft Report], 2001. Anne Allingham. Taming the Wilderness: The First Decade of Pastoral Settlement in the Kennedy District. Townsville: James Cook University of North Queensland, 1977. Australian Dictionary of Biography. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1974. B Peter Bell Timber and Iron: Houses in North Queensland Mining Settlements, 1861-1920 St Lucia, Qld: UQP, 1984.

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Geoffrey Bolton. A Thousand Miles Away: A History of North Queensland to 1920.Canberra: ANU, 1972. Michael Brumby and Robyn Barrie. A Century of Playing the Game: The First 100 Years of Schooling at Richmond Hill State School, Charters Towers, 1895 – 1995. Charters Towers: Richmond Hill Parents and Citizens Association, 1995. Michael Brumby. Muskets and Mantlets: A Brief History of the Life and Times of the Charters Towers Rifle Range 1885 – 1995. Charters Towers, 1996. Michael Brumby. One Square Mile: Re-discovering the Buildings and the Life of Mosman, Gill and Bow Streets, Charters Towers, North Queensland. Charters Towers, Charters Towers and Dalrymple Archives Group, 1997. Michael Brumby. Beyond the Bin: Some of the Places and Some of the People of Charters Towers. Charters Towers, Charters Towers and Dalrymple Archives Group, 1998. Michael Brumby. Millchester State School: A Celebration of 125 Years, Including the Closed Schools at Queenton, Mount Leyshon, the Broughton and King’s Gully. Charters Towers, Millchester State School Parents and Citizens Association, 1999. Michael Brumby. The Fourth Man. [manuscript[ 2000. Michael Brumby. Charters Towers: New Century, New Nation, 1901. Charters Towers, *Charters Towers and Dalrymple Archives Group, 2001 C Charters Towers and Dalrymple Archives Group: Johnson Collection. Charters Towers The City It Was - The City It’s Going to Be. Charters Towers: Charters Towers Jubilee Committee, 1922. Michael Cunningham. Pioneering of the River Burdekin. [typescript] 1895. “Charters Towers the Premier Goldfield of Eastern Australia.” Supplement to Northern Miner, 09/10/1899. F Jean Farnfield. Frontiersman: A Biography of George Elphinstone Dalrymple. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1968. G Robert Gray. Reminiscences of India and North Queensland. London: Constable,1913. David Green, [editor] The North Queensland’s Register’s Mining History of Charters Towers. Charters Towers: North Queensland Newspaper Company, 1897. H Bill Henderson Interview 1996. The Heritage of Australia: The Illustrated Register of the National Estate, South Melbourne: Macmillan, 1981. J Robert Logan Jack Report on the Geology and Mineral Resources of the District Between Charters Towers Goldfield’s and the Coast. Brisbane: GSQ, 1879. Joe Janecek an Early History of Charters Towers [manuscript] 2001. John Oxley Library: OM 64 - 19/62: Sir Thomas McIllwraith/ Palmer Papers.

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L Ken Levingston, Ore Deposits and Mines of Charters Towers, 1972. M Luke W. Marsland. The Charters Towers Gold Mines: A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Town and Gold Field of Charters Towers London: Waterloo Bros, 1892. Diane Menghetti.Charters Towers [Thesis] Townsville: James Cook University, 1984. N Joan Neal Beyond the Burdekin: Pioneers, Prospectors, Pastoralists A History of the Dalrymple Shire 1879 – 1979. Charters Towers: Mimosa Press, 1984. *Northern Advocate. *Northern Mining Register Christmas Number, 1891. *North Queensland Register Christmas Numbers 1892 – 1903. P Elsa Powell Interview October, 2001. Q Queensland: A Narrative of Her Past Together With Biographies of Her Leading Men. Brisbane: Alcazar, 1900. Queensland Census Districts, 1881 [Kennedy] [map]

Queensland Government Gazette 1861 - 1914. Queensland Government Mining Journal Special Issue for the Glasgow International Exhibition, 1901. Queensland State Archives: CLO/N17 @microfilm Z4346: Register of Runs Under the Unoccupied Crown Lands Occupation Act in the Pastoral District of Kennedy. Queensland State Archives: CHA/N1 CTCC Valuation Register 1877. Queensland State Archives: COL/A247. Queensland State Archives: 1/2 L 1868 NOT: Map of Kennedy District Showing Surveyed Roads and bush Tracks from Bowen, Townsville and Mackay to the Cape River Gold Fields 1868. Queensland State Archives : Mines Dpt Map # 4719, 1877? [map] Queensland State Archives: L5/4 1876Refer to Plan of Sections Nos 1 to 15 town of Charters Towers, 1876. [map] Queensland State Archives: L5/4 1910 Town of Charters Towers, 1910. [map] R *Ravenswood Miner. 1871 – 1872. J.H. Reid. The Charters Towers Goldfield, 1917. Don Roderick The Development of Charters Towers. [Typescript]. S Phillip F. Sellheim. “History of the Charters Towers Goldfield: Its Rise and Progress” in Votes and Proceedings, 1887. Elena.Springer (Ed.) Charters Towers Centenary. Charters Towers: North Queensland Newspaper Co, 1972 . Ross Thomas (compiler). Street Directory, 1903. Sydney Mail, 17 August 1895.

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T Ross Thomas The Classic Robert Logan Jack Map Collection. Charters Towers:, 1999. V Votes and Proceedings, 1881: “Report of the Department of Mines, Queensland for the Year 1880.” Votes and Proceedings, 1873: “Report of Superintendent Commissioner Jardine on the Gold Fields of Charters Towers, Broughton, The Cape River, and Normanby.” W Donald Watson and Judith Mckay, Queensland Architects of the 19th Century, Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1994.

2 . 1 0 M A P S

Figure 29 Map of Kennedy District ... 1868 Complied by Thomas Ham Source:

QSA: 1/2 1868 NOT

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Figure 30 Census Map, 1881. Source:

CTADAG.

ONE SQUARE MILE 2


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Figure 31 Detail of the One Square Mile from Charters towers Mines Department

Map, 1874. Source: QSA: 4719

ONE SQUARE MILE 2


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Figure 32 Detail of Millchester Township from Charters Towers Mines Department

Map, 1874. Source: QSA: 4719

ONE SQUARE MILE 2


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Figure 33 Detail of Mosman Street from "Town of Charters Towers...” Surveyed by Claude Newcombe in 1888? Source:

CTADAG: 86501/7

ONE SQUARE MILE 2


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Figure 34 Detail of Gill Street from "Town of Charters Towers...” Surveyed by Claude Newcombe in 1888? Source:

CTADAG: 86501/7

ONE SQUARE MILE 2


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Figure 35 Detail of Lower Mosman Street from "Town of Charters Towers...”

Surveyed by Claude Newcombe in 1888?

Source: CTADAG: 86501/7

ONE SQUARE MILE 3

THE GOLD MINES OF CHARTERS TOWERS

56


3 THE GOLD MINES OF CHARTERS TOWERS

This essay has been prepared by Diane Menghetti who is an Associate Professor at the School of Humanities at the James Cook University. Diane has an expertise in the mining history of Charters Towers.

3 . 1 A N O V E R V I E W O F M I N I N G A N D M I L L I N G O N

C H A R T E R S T O W E R S

I N T R O D U C T I O N

Historic mining on the Charters Towers field can be roughly divided into four periods. In the early days of the field, say between 1872 and 1879, primitive gouging gave way to some rich shaft mining, especially on the St Patrick reef. For the ten years from 1879, the Day Dawns dominated the field and led it into company mining. 1889 marked the discovery of the rich Brilliant shoots and the Brilliant phase saw the introduction of cyanide. Between 1902 and 1905, the Queen Cross briefly held back the field’s demise.

1 8 7 2 - 7 9 : N O R T H A U S T R A L I A T O B R Y A N O ’ L Y N N

The discovery of gold on Charters Towers is credited to George Clarke, Hugh Mosman, John Fraser and Jupiter, an Aboriginal horseboy from Kynuna station.1 They discovered the North Australia reef in late December 1871; on 26 January 1872 Mosman registered the claim.2 The new field, proclaimed on 31 August, originally covered 1,700 square miles, bounded by the Burdekin River on the north and east, the Seventy Mile Range to the south and the township of Southern Cross on the west. It included Mount Leyshon, Rishton and the Broughton.3 Later the area was reduced to six hundred square miles.4

1 David Green, Mining History of Charters Towers: 1872 to 1897 (Charters

Towers 1897), unpaginated. “Discovery” is used here in the sense discussed by

Geoffrey Blainey, “A Theory of Mineral Discovery: Australia in the Nineteenth

Century”, in Economic History Review XXIII (June 1970). In this sense the

claim of Mosman’s party to the discovery of the field is not affected by later

claims that Jessop and Dumeresq directed Mosman to the field where they had

prospected some eight months previously before moving on to the Broughton.

North Queensland Mining Register, 6 January 1892. 2 Miners Rights 48661, 48662 and 48663, issued at Ravenswood.

3 W Lees, “The Charters Towers Goldfield” in The Goldfields of Queensland

(Brisbane, 1899), p.3. 4 Annual Report of the Department of Mines (AR), 1887, p.3. The first written

suggestion that “Towers” is a corruption of the Old English “Tors” appears in

this report. There is, however, no evidence to suggest that any name change has

taken place. See Figure 1.

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Charters Towers yielded little alluvial, Jardine suggested that the “so-called alluvial which has been worked, is rather a deposit of quartz drift...5 and later wrote: “On Charters Towers I saw no alluvial (properly so called) diggings.”6 The diggers pegged outcrops of easily accessible and simply treated quartz, most of it from the North Australia, Rainbow, Wyndham, Moonstone and St. Patrick reefs,7 but the Washington, Alexandra, Caledonia, Just-in-Time and Queen reefs were also worked during 1872. In its first year the field returned about 31,000 ounces of gold.8 Most early mines were worked by individuals or small syndicates. The few that employed wage miners, rarely worked more than a single shift.9 Their technology was primitive. Miners used windlasses, whips or whims to haul ore through shallow vertical shafts, shaded by bark roofs. They built windlasses from three pieces of bush timber, set astride the shaft. The bucket hung by a rope from the crosspiece which had iron handles driven into either side. They made whips10 by driving the thicker end of a sixteen foot log into the ground at an angle of about forty-five degrees, so that the other end stood eight feet above the centre of the shaft. They attached the bucket to a rope that ran over a large diameter wheel set in a groove at the top. From there it went under another wheel at ground level to the man or horse providing the motive power by walking back and forth. The whim11 was bigger, and built away from the shaft. It comprised a horizontally positioned timber drum supported by a vertical wooden axle with a horizontal beam attached to its lower end. The bucket rope ran over a wheel set above the shaft and then around the drum. It was raised or lowered by a horse, harnessed to the crosspiece, walking in circles to rotate the drum. Early Charters Towers millers crushed the ore in stamp batteries12 and extracted gold by amalgamation, in which clean metallic surfaces of gold alloyed with liquid mercury to form a grey plastic amalgam. When heated, this released its mercury as gas, leaving metallic gold in the

5 J Jardine to the Secretary for Public Works, 9 October 1872, COL/A 2340,

Queensland State Archives (QSA). 6 See Votes and Proceedings, 1873, p.1072.

7 JH Reid, The Charters Towers Goldfield, Geological Survey of Queensland

(GSQ) Publication 256 (Brisbane, 1917), p.25. 8 Ibid.

9 In May 1873 only six mines were working two shifts a day, none worked three

shifts. Queenslander, 17 May 1873. 10

See Figure 2. 11

See Figure 3. 12

By the 1870s, three types of machinery had been developed to crush ore for

amalgamation: rollers, breakers and stamps. The early machinery introduced into

North Queensland was, for a variety of reasons, almost entirely of the stamper

type.

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retort.13 The technique was used in Europe during the seventeenth century.14 Stamps were heavy iron pestles lifted by revolving cams then allowed to fall on the ore. They worked in a rectangular iron mortar in groups of three to six, commonly five. The stamps were set in wooden guides within a frame, to form what was usually called a battery.15 Millers fed ore and water into the mortar where it was crushed between the stamps and the dies of the mortar floor.16 Charters Towers millers added mercury to the mortars but used no inside plates. The crushed ore splashed out, through a metal screen, on to an amalgamation table covered with copper plates sprinkled with mercury. As the stream of crushed rock ran down the table its gold amalgamated with the mercury on the plates; this was scraped off and retorted at regular intervals.17 William Buchanan set up the field’s first mill at the beginning of May 1872; his plant came from Ravenswood. He added new batteries towards the end of 1872 and sold out to Thomas Mowbray soon afterwards. Mowbray made the mistake of removing the mill during a slump in 1873.18 In June, Ravenswood businessmen EHT Plant and George Jackson erected the twenty-head Venus Battery, but sold out to Hutton and Whitehead at a profit of £1,000 before the end of the year.19 Also in June, John Deane brought his Defiance Mill in from the Broughton.20 The Working Miner, which was crushing by September, consisted of a single battery of three stamps, possibly one of the hand-operated prospecting units manufactured by Walker and Company of Maryborough. Its owners, WH Norris, JR Robson and LM Harrison, removed the machine in 1873 and Patrick Hishon took up the area. He installed an unusually grouped set of three batteries of four stamps each, plus a “Mickey” or single stamp used for small or experimental parcels of ore. Norris managed it under the name Never Despair.21 Of the pioneer millmen, only the Tough brothers, William, John and George, worked their One

13

Joseph Newton, Extractive Metallurgy (New York, 1967), pp.447-48; EJ Prior,

Mineral Processing (London, 3rd

ed. 1974), pp.734-37. 14

RF Tylecote, A History of Metallurgy (London, 1976), p.101. 15

See Figure 4. 16

See Figure 5. 17

See Figure 6. 18

Queenslander, 27 April 1872; Ravenswood Miner, 6 September 1872, cited in

Queenslander, 12 October 1872; Register of Applications for Areas, A/20767,

QSA. 19

Queenslander, 28 September & 16 November 1872; Register of Applications

for Areas, A/20767, QSA. 20

The Defiance battery was intended for Ravenswood. It was freighted to

Townsville in the schooner Black Dog, which was wrecked off the coast in 1871.

By the time the salvage operations were complete, Ravenswood had slumped and

he erected his mill at the newly opened Broughton field for a short time before

transferring it to Charters Towers. Port Denison Times, 3 June 1871;

Queenslander, 25 November 1871 & 20 January 1872. 21

Register of Applications for Areas, A/20767, QSA; Queenslander, 7 December

1878.

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and All throughout the seventies. They had three five-stamp batteries and a “Mickey”, on an area near to Venus.22 In 1873 Thomas and Byrne brought their ten head Mary Louisa mill in from Rishton, and the following year Deane, in partnership with William Sadd, erected five head on the North Australia line. This was moved in 1875 when it was renamed the Enterprise.23 Even by the second half of 1873 there were signs that these technologies were inadequate. Mines pushed deeper into the ground and, at a vertical depth of between seventy and a hundred feet, where air and water from the surface had not penetrated, more complex ores were encountered: ores containing undecomposed sulphides such as iron pyrites, galena and zinc blende.24 Under new mining law passed in 1874,25 syndicates formed partnerships to test their ground at depth. At this time, “at depth” meant sinking about two hundred feet, a level reached in a number of mines on the Rainbow and St. Patrick lines during 1875.26 By then, the field was dominated by two incredibly wealthy mines, the St. Patrick Block and the Bryan O’Lynn.27 Their rich surface stone financed development, despite major partner Stubley’s 28 sometimes disastrous mining experiments.29 Without such working capital, Charters Towers miners were lost. The reefs were irregular in both direction and angle of dip. It was not uncommon to find several shoots of gold lying parallel at different depths in the same mine. The continued success of a property

22

Queenslander, 28 September 1872; Ravenswood Miner, 6 September 1972,

cited in Queenslander, 12 October 1872; Northern Miner, 5 October 1880. 23

Northern Miner, 5 October 1880; Register of Applications for Areas, A/20767,

QSA. 24

Reid, The Charters Towers Goldfield, p.36. 25

The Queensland Gold Fields Act, 1874: 38 VIC No.11. See M Drew,

“Queensland Mining Statutes 1859-1930”, in KH Kennedy (ed.), Readings in

North Queensland Mining History, Vol.2, (Townsville, 1982); J Stoodley, “An

Early Aspect of Queensland Mining Law”, in University of Queensland Law

Journal, Vol.5, (1966). 26

Queenslander, 29 May 1875. The terms “deep sinking” and “at depth” were

used at different stages in the life of the field to mean depths of between 200 feet

and 3,000 feet. Always they signify the deepest shafts being sunk during that

period. 27

The Bryan O’Lynn was later part of the Brilliant Central ground. 28

Stubley arrived on the field during 1872. He owned the major part of both the

St. Patrick Block and the Bryan O’Lynn, and also had interests in the No.4

Queen (with Secretary for Mines and Public Works, HE King, and King’s

brother-in-law, Thomas Buckland), the Mexican, the No.1 East Sunburst and the

Identity. He was elected MLA for Charters Towers in 1878. Stubley later

invested heavily in wheat and ships, lost all his money, died and was buried by

the roadside on his way to the Croydon goldfield. 29

In 1876 he imported an English “borer” which, operated by a local engine

driver, buckled on the hard Charters Towers granite. The Queenslander later

noted he had drilled two feet at an average cost of £2,500 a foot. Queenslander,

30 November 1878.

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was, therefore, dependent on the owners surviving long and expensive periods of “dead work”. Sinking was expensive30 and, as the mines sank deeper, they often encountered dangerous and expensive water problems, making the replacement of whims and whips by steam engines and poppet heads a matter of urgency. From the mid-1870s many of the wealthier mines installed their own crushing plant connected to the mine by tramway. Others, though, purchased public mills and prioritised their own ore. Early in 1876, Stubley and Buckland bought the Defiance Mill, and Richard Craven took over the Enterprise to crush for his Caledonia, No.4 Queen and Mexican interests.31 The following month David Nagle and Ellen Kelly, partners in the No.1 St. Patrick, bought the Never Despair,32 leaving the field with only three mills that gave priority to custom crushing. Increasingly those mines that depended most heavily on quick returns were forced to wait weeks or even months to crush.33 The mills themselves faced problems in treating the ore, despite the fact that Charters Towers mundic rarely went over 6% sulphides.34 At the end of 1875, tests carried out on stone from St Patrick’s Block suggested that they were recovering less than half the gold. Many millers began to sell their tailings to companies specifically set up to treat them. EHT Plant set up two of these “Pyrites” companies during 1878, (one each at Charters Towers and Millchester) two others were built by John Deane and William Sadd and by Thomas Buckland.35 Their processes usually involved concentrating tailings in a buddle36 or a Brown and Stanfield concentrator37 The concentrated sands were then reground with mercury, in a Wheeler pan,38 then ground yet again in a Berdan.39 The Berdan was an American invention dating from the Californian gold rushes. It attracted attention during the 1850s, but Europeans never adopted it and it lost favour with American millmen by the 1870s. In North Queensland, with local modifications, it was the favourite grinding pan. Ninety-five of them were in use in Charters

30

From ₤10 to ₤12 per foot by contract 31

Queenslander, 26 February 1876. 32

Ibid., 11 March 1876. 33

Problems in tracing the history of the mills arise because changes of name and

occupation or cancellations were not always registered. Even when registration

was effected, it was often many months after the event had been reported in the

newspapers. Applications for Areas, A/20767, QSA. 34

The ore was classified as “refractory” even though the sulphide concentration

was not heavy. 35

AR, 1878, p.14. 36

See Figure 7. 37

See Figure 8. 38

See Figure 9. 39

See Figure 10.

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Towers by 187840 and some remain at the Venus Mill to this day. From the Berdan, the sands went to a settler41. Once the amalgam had settled the miller could drain off light materials with the liquid and retrieve heavy, metallic particles. As haulage and extraction became more complicated and expensive, most diggers turned to wage mining. The big mines began to work three shifts a day; the Queen had eighty-one miners on its payroll during 1879.42 Wages in Charters Towers were quite good,43 but employment was often seasonal. Mines usually saved their “dead work”44 for the winter, when shafts were drier and water shortages increased crushing and transport costs. This work employed a smaller workforce than stoping and surplus miners were laid off. It is perhaps indicative of the condition of the wage miner at this time that despite massive investment in machinery45 all stoping was still by hand, no rock drills arrived on the field until 1881. Further, as the shafts pushed deeper, 46 accidents increased in both number and severity. Falls of ground, mishaps in the shafts and rushes of water became more common: during 1876 several tons of water broke, without warning, into the North Australia mine.47 The following year, three men drowned in a similar accident at the Identity.48 Queensland’s first mine safety regulations were not passed until 1881.49

1 8 7 9 - 8 9 : D A Y D A W N

The next stage of Charters Towers’ mining was dominated by the discovery of the rich deposits of the Day Dawn P.C. within the city area.

40

AR, 1878, p.15. 41

See Figure 11. 42

AR, 1882, p.11. 43

Charters Towers miners were paid ₤3 to ₤3/10/- a week throughout the

nineteenth century. This compared favourably with Gympie and Ravenswood,

but unfavourably with the other North Queensland fields. Labourers received

about ₤2. 44

Development work. 45

The machinery on the field was conservatively valued at ₤81,500 in 1880. AR,

1880, p.12. Although there were 69 (aggregate 736 horsepower) engines on the

field by 1882, whims and whips were used in some mines at depths of 400-500

feet, especially where water was not a problem. 46

By 1880 more than eighty shafts had reached a vertical depth of over one

hundred feet, the deepest reaching around six hundred feet. AR, 1880, p.12. The

calculation of shaft depths is complicated by the use of underlie shafts, sunk at

varying angles and often in conjunction with vertical shafts. 47

Queenslander, 18 September 1877. 48

June Stoodley, The Queensland Gold Miner in the Late Nineteenth Century:

His Influence and Interests, M.A. thesis, University of Queensland 1964, p.55. 49

The Mines Regulation Act, 1881: 45 VIC No.6.

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A group of Germans, led by Frederick Pfeiffer,50 laid off the ground in 1873; they worked it for five years. In 1879 Thomas Christian bought into the syndicate as manager. He abandoned the rickety vertical shaft, replaced the whip with steam winding gear and developed an underlie shaft.51 Within months it was evident that the mine contained the largest reef yet found on the field.52 During 1881 the syndicate floated the first of a new wave of “no liability” companies, with the unprecedented capital of £24,000.53 Within two weeks it paid its first dividend and shareholders earned £131,800 by the end of 1882.54 The importance of the Day Dawn was by no means limited to its success as a joint stock company. Prior to 1880 miners accepted that, in Charters Towers, a yield of one ounce for each ton of stone raised was the minimum level of profitability. In addition to some very rich pockets, the Day Dawn reef possessed vast bodies of low grade ore which, combined with the comparative freedom of its gold, made it profitable at 15dwts per ton.55 Therefore it guaranteed the permanence of the field and, through the Day Dawn P.C., the Day Dawn Block and Wyndham (floated in 1882) and Mills Day Dawn United, the new reef dominated the field during the 1880s and was worked for three decades.

50

Pfeiffer was born in Attenhasslau in 1834, arrived in Australia in 1856 and

worked on the Victorian and New Zealand goldfields before moving north. The

members of the Day Dawn syndicate changed frequently during the next five

years, but in 1879 consisted of Pfeiffer, Christian, Ievers, Harman, Romberg,

Reidrich, Paradies and Bandholz. Pfeiffer owned 25% of the mine. He later

became a mining speculator and company director, and died in Charters Towers

in 1903. 51

LW Marsland, The Charters Towers Gold Mines: A Descriptive and Historical

Account of the Town and Goldfield of Charters Towers, Queensland, with Full

and Detailed Particulars of the More Important Mines, Illustrated by Plans and

Photographic Views, And of all Mining companies Carrying on Operations on

the Field, Being a Handbook of Charters Towers and a Guide to Mining

Investors (London 1892), p.72. 52

Yields from the Day Dawn P.C. were: 1881-13,933 ounces, 1882-22,778,

1883-18,077, 1884-30,130, 1885-34,775, 1886-29,365. The mine continued to be

one of the biggest producers on the field until the 1890s and was worked until

1913. 53 11 October 1881. Register of Companies, Charters Towers, MWO 11A/T1, QSA. No Liability legislation passed in 1874; the first Charters Towers company was floated by the owners of the Rainbow Claim; it was registered on 6 September 1875. During 1876 another five no liability companies were floated in Charters Towers, but they were not particularly successful, and the legislation remained unpopular until the Day Dawn float. 54

AR, 1882, p.13. 55

Marsland, The Charters Towers Gold Mines, pp.14-15. In Victorian mines 10

dwts per ton was considered payable.

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Even at this stage there were still twenty-three whips and five whims in use on the field, and centipede (or Jacob’s) ladders56 were far from rare. The field still had no safety cages,57 and although some rock drills had arrived, they were lying idle because the miners could not adapt them to the local grano-diorite.58 Poor timbering, particularly on the unstable Queen line of reef, had caused six accidents, two of them fatal, during 1883,59 while the fact that no-one held a complete plan of underground workings led to a number of casualties the following year.60 Widespread ignorance of explosives cost many miners their lives. When the first Northern Mining Inspector was appointed in early 1883, he discovered that it was not uncommon for miners to store underground up to three hundred pounds of unprotected explosives which they could only access by candle light.61 Miners routinely rammed “black powder” home with metal tamping bars, and it was fairly common for powder to be used in conjunction with the newly introduced dynamite. One accident investigation revealed that the dead miner used two plugs of dynamite topped with powder which he then attempted to ram down with a copper rod.62 In the North Queen, in 1885, five pounds of explosives were tossed into a water bucket in the blacksmith’s shop, probably on the assumption that water would disarm them. After twenty-four hours, the then harmless plugs were carefully disposed of and the blacksmith poured the water into which the nitro-glycerine had leached into his cooling tub. It killed the first man who tried to temper a tool.63 Nevertheless, gold production increased by 57% in 1884.64 Growth was almost entirely due to the output of just two mines within the square mile, the Day Dawn P.C. and the Day Dawn Block and Wyndham,65 but investor confidence soared. The number of joint stock companies on the

56

AR, 1883, pp.10 & 68. Centipede ladders consisted of a piece of wood with

wooden pegs driven in to it at intervals. 57

AR, 1885, p.79. 58

Ibid., p.17. 59

AR, 1883, p.10. 60

In one of these a group of miners drove into the disused workings of an

adjacent mine; the old drive was full of gas formed by decomposing timber,

which exploded on contact with the miners’ candles. Two more occurred when

miners unexpectedly tapped old workings that were full of water. AR, 1884,

pp.17 & 66. 61

AR, 1883, p.68. This position was held by Joseph Shakespeare from 1883 to

1900. He was succeeded in 1901 by S Horsley who held the position until 1904.

M Russell was Mining Inspector from 1905 to 1912, and he was replaced in

1913 by JA Thomas who presided over the demise of the field. 62

AR, 1885, p.79. 63

Ibid., p.80. 64

AR, 1884, p.5. The confidence inspired was reflected by the publication, in

May 1884, of the Charters Towers and North Queensland Mining Journal, a

monthly which ran for five issues. 65

Day Dawn P.C. produced 30,130 ounces and Day Dawn Block and Wyndham

15,956 ounces during 1884.

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field rose from thirty-nine to ninety-three during 1885.66 Still, foreign, especially British, capital eluded the field until 1886. In that year new company laws in both Queensland67 and Britain68 coincided with the Colonial and Indian Exhibition in London at the end of June 1886. Charters Towers seized the opportunity. The Day Dawn Block and Wyndham displayed a 1,709 ounce cake of retorted gold in the exhibition’s Queensland Court. Even better, the Court displayed a fully equipped milling plant which, in the course of the Exhibition, treated some two hundred tons of quartz, composed of half ton samples from each of the leading mines,69 to produce bars of fine gold.70 In August, the Day Dawn Block and Wyndham was floated in London, followed by Bonnie Dundee, No.2 Queen and Mosman before the end of the year.71 As investment capital flowed on to the field, the Charters Towers Pyrites company’s engineer, DA Brown, was busy conducting some very advanced metallurgical experiments. Brown was interested in chlorination, the process of extracting gold in the form of gold chloride. In the mid-1880s the company spent some £60,000 on plant, including a huge reverbatory furnace on the side of Towers Hill.72 Brown’s process involved first roasting the concentrates slowly in the furnace to expel sulphur from the pyrites and to oxidise their base metals to reduce the amount of chlorine they could absorb. He then added salt to satisfy the chloride needs of the copper, zinc and other metals. Finally he introduced chlorine and water so that the gold in the tailings gradually formed a solution of gold chloride which he collected and precipitated.73 Brown’s plant must be acknowledged as the most innovative single technological achievement of the Charters Towers goldfield; it produced 98% fine gold. But it was a commercial failure; in both Brown’s plant, and a smaller chlorination plant run by the North Queensland Pyrites Company on the Burdekin River, constant adjustments eroded profits, and a new, and much cheaper, chemical extraction method was already being developed. In fact, neither the mines nor the British shareholders gained long-term advantage from British investment. The investors of the late 1880s were

66

AR, 1885, p.16. 67

50 VIC No.9. 68

British Companies Act, 1886, 69

These included Mosman, North Queen, Day Dawn P.C., Day Dawn Block and

Wyndham, Queen No.2 and Victory as well as mines at Gympie, Ravenswood,

the Etheridge and the Palmer. 70

“Report on the Colonial and Indian Exhibition”, British Australian, reprinted

in Northern Miner, 10 August 1886. 71

JW McCarty, British Investment in Overseas Mining 1880-1914, PhD thesis,

University of Cambridge, 1960, pp.54-56. 72

See Plate 1. 73

Chlorination was the most successful extraction method to date; but because

chlorine attracts metals other than gold it was inapplicable to some ores,

particularly those containing an appreciable quantity of lead.

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speculators rather than developers. Paper transactions became more important than mining and companies deliberately exploited rich ore pockets to produce the dramatic dividends needed to boost share prices. Not all the blame belonged in England. Some of the mines floated by Charters Towers owners, especially those sold during the “Black Jack” rush74 of 1886, were “wild cats” of which Warden Sellheim reported, “the promoters could not have expected to strike a reef if they had penetrated the earth to its centre”.75 Investors could even be fooled by floats of established mines;76 the Day Dawn Block and Wyndham and the Day Dawn P.C., for example, were magnificent mines. But they had both reached their peak when they were sold to British companies, the Block for £498,400 and the P.C. for £470,000, of which £401,600 and £450,000 respectively were paid to the vendors.77

1 8 8 9 - 1 9 0 2 : B R I L L I A N T

Also in 1886, one of the field’s earliest speculators, Richard Craven,78 took up GML 585, a twenty-five acre lease on which he believed he would find the junction of the Queen and Day Dawn reefs. He persuaded an old business associate, George Ievers,79 to provide £12,000 to finance a vertical shaft and float the company as the Brilliant GMC.80 By late 1889 the shaft was down nine hundred feet, and the capital almost exhausted, when Craven decided to explore an apparently unpromising shoot passed at 765 feet. Within weeks they opened out, not on the junction of

74

After some good crushings at the Black Jack P.C. some 203 acres were taken

up in this area. Northern Miner, 27 September 1886. 75

AR, 1887, p.16. 76

AR, 1886, p.17. See also EHT Plant as reported by The Charters Towers

Times, 16 October 1888: “There can be no mistake about it that one of the great

causes is in Stock Exchange dealings. . . . Then again the share-holders are in

too much of a hurry to get dividends. . . perhaps the main reason of the low price

of shares in many of the companies on the market arises from the way they have

been ‘loaded’ for the benefit of promoters.” 77

McCarty, British Investment in Overseas Mining, pp.55-57. Other big mines

floated in London by the end of 1887 included Livingstone, Bonnie Dundee,

Phoebe and No.2 Queen. 78

Richard Craven arrived in the colonies in 1865 and was involved in a series of

rushes to Crocodile Creek, Gympie, “Ridley’s Rush”, Gayndah, Cape River,

Cloncurry, Peak Downs, Normanby, the Broughton and Mount Leyshon, where

he was working when Mosman’s party arrived late in 1871. He arrived in

Charters Towers in March 1872 and remained there until 1891 when he retired to

Sydney where he died eight years later. 79

Ievers was a major shareholder in the Day Dawn P.C. in 1879. He retired to

Ireland on his earnings from this mine and was active on the London stock

market during the 1886 boom when he floated Phoebe as an English company.

One of the vendors of this property was Richard Craven. 80

Ievers was the major shareholder with 57%, Craven held 27%. A further 3%

were held in Charters Towers, 6% in Dalby and 7% in Britain. Summary of

Capital and Shares of the Brilliant Gold Mining Company, MWO 11A/01, QSA.

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the Queen and Day Dawn, but on a new ore body: the Brilliant reef.81 In the excitement that followed its discovery, the Charters Towers Stock Exchange reconstituted; it opened for business in the Royal Arcade in Mosman Street in May 1890.82 By 1891 the Brilliant P.C. was the biggest producer on the field, and by 1899 it had yielded over £2,000,000 in gold. The Brilliant was the most productive ore shoot ever discovered in Charters Towers and was eventually mined to a depth of nearly 3,000 feet. The major technological change of this period, though, had nothing to do with developments on the Brilliant reef. The revolutionary metallurgical process of cyanide extraction was patented as the McArthur-Forrest process in 1891. The sands were mixed with a very weak potassium cyanide solution in which, after some hours, the gold dissolved. The miller then trickled the solution through a filter of zinc threads to precipitate the gold as a fine powder which could be shaken into water. Cyaniding needed neither expensive machinery nor large amounts of fuel and could be used by small operators in almost any circumstance where there was water. While it was invented in Scotland, some of the first field trials of the process that would change gold milling technology throughout the world were carried out in Ravenswood and Charters Towers. In 1892, the Australian Gold Recovery Company bought a patent and erected plant to treat dumps built up over the previous years. The Day Dawn P.C. Company also bought the rights and added appliances to its Excelsior Mill.83 By the end of 1897 there were about seventy cyaniding plants on the field, between them treating some 25,000 tons of tailings a month;84 two years later there were ninety-six.85 Cyanide treatment allowed Charters Towers gold production to peak at 319,572 fine ounces in 1899. The Brilliant discoveries did influence mining by restoring some popularity to vertical shafts. Ever since the Day Dawn breakthrough, vertical shafts had been unpopular (except on Block leases). Even in the Brilliant phase, the underlie remained one of the characteristics of the field. The underlie shaft, which followed the formation down from the outcrop of the reef, was originally adopted because of the unpredictability of the angle of dip of the ore bodies.86 Even though

81


Don Roderick, Charters Towers and its Stock Exchange (Townsville, 1977),

p.14. The original Charters Towers stock exchange opened on 1 August 1885,

but was short lived. 83

AR, 1892, p.44. This later led to patent litigation. 84

AR, 1897, p.34. 85


The angle of dip of the Charters Towers ore bodies varied from about 27

degrees to (rarely) 65 degrees.

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underlies were expensive to timber,87 they remained popular on Charters Towers even when the company knew the lie of its shoot. After the discovery of the Brilliant reef, it became common for big mines to sink deep vertical shafts onto the shallowest part of the reef, then follow the formation with an underlie. Another characteristic of Charters Towers mining was “pigstye”88 timbering used particularly in underlies on the Day Dawn and Brilliant reefs. This style of timbering had also been abandoned as too costly in southern mines, but in Charters Towers it was useful for the field’s “flat” lodes, wide formations, unreliable hanging walls, and shortage of heavy mining timber.89 While it was impossible to avoid the expense of timbering the field’s underlie shafts, there can be no doubt that many Charters Towers mining practices were uneconomical. Indeed, the field suffered severely from poor long-term planning.90 In part this was a management problem; rarely did anyone have overall charge of a large Charters Towers mine. In most operations separate managers controlled the mine, mill and cyanide plant; this allowed the directorate an unusual level of technical control. This was unfortunate since the Boards had more investment skills than mining experience. Those directors who had hands-on training were left-overs from the field’s early days. Many of them exuded a confidence in their mining knowledge which, for the complex operations they presently controlled, was not justified. Worse, as “practical” miners, they scorned mining theory, and were reluctant to employ the competent graduates produced by the Charters Towers School of Mines after its establishment in 1901.91 In other part, though, the problem was the highly speculative nature of mining investment. Demands for dividends discouraged companies from equalising ores and systematically prospecting, both of which might have extended the life of the mines. Indeed, this emphasis on share returns, combined with the success of the cyanide process, disguised production trends at the turn of the century. In Charters Towers’ most productive year, 1899, the mills crushed 176 tons less stone than in 1898, and for

87

J Malcolm MacLaren, Queensland Mining and M illing Practice, GSQ

Publication 183 (Brisbane, 1901), p.4. 88

See Figure 12. 89

Joseph Shakespeare, “Special Report on Methods of Mining in Deep Ground

in Victoria”, AR, 1895, p.39. The vertical shaft followed by an underlie was also

used at Croydon and Ravenswood. 90

See William Blane, “Report on the Conditions and Modes of Working on the

Goldfields of Queensland”, AR, 1901, p.41; also MacLaren, Queensland Mining

and Milling Practice, p.11. 91

Report of the Director of the Charters Towers School of Mines, in AR, 1905,

p.151. It should be noted, however, that graduates of the School were most

successful in obtaining positions in other districts.

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8,388 fewer ounces of gold.92 The increased yield was, in fact, due entirely to the production of 278,256 ounces of cyanide bullion from the accumulated tailings heaps.

1 9 0 2 - 0 5 : Q U E E N C R O S S

Eventually, of course, the tailings dumps were used up, and it was fortunate for the field that the exhaustion of the old tailings93 coincided with the last of the great discoveries on the field in 1902. Like many other Charters Towers mines, the Queen Cross had worked a series of parallel reefs during a long and varied life that began in 1873. Early in 1902,94 a crosscut at 876 feet cut the “new” Queen Cross reef two hundred feet east of the shaft, and the mine immediately became the biggest producer on the field.95 In the subsequent boom, share values soared and thirty new companies were formed, some of which were of value only to their vendors. Nevertheless, the confidence generated gave bigger companies licence to call in contributing capital which financed some rewarding prospecting.96 The Queen Cross reef dominated the field from 1902 until 1905, but its career demonstrated how little had been learned about mine management. The shoot, which on an ounce per ton basis was probably the richest (though certainly not the largest) in the history of Charters Towers, was gutted out to provide £614,166 in dividends within three years. There is no evidence that that the company carried out any serious prospecting on the lease before the shoot pinched out in 1905. Certainly management made no attempt to equalise ores to lengthen the life of the mine and preserve the jobs of its three hundred and fifty employees.97 The short-sightedness of the Charters Towers directorates was also demonstrated by their shaft sinking practices. They routinely sank shafts without considering future air circulation. Almost all ventilation on the field was effected by what were, somewhat euphemistically, called “natural methods”: that is, air entered the mine through a downcast and

92

AR, 1898, p.35. Wardens’ returns become increasingly difficult to interpret

after 1892 as they gave annual production in terms of retorted mill gold plus the

much less valuable cyanide bullion. 93

Small amounts of tailings continued to be recovered from the water courses

and treated by small operators, but they had an insignificant effect on the annual

production figures. 94

Although Reid gives the date as 1901, the year stated by the warden, FP

Parkinson, has been accepted. Sellheim left Charters Towers in 1888, succeeding

wardens were: AC Haldane (Acting) February to October 1888; WM Mowbray

October 1888 to April 1900; LED Towner April 1900 to September 1901; FP

Parkinson September 1901 to March 1905. 95


For example during 1902 the Brilliant Deep Levels reconstructed to finance a

new shaft, the Day Dawn Block and Wyndham took up more land and began

diamond drill prospecting and the Brilliant Extended paid its first dividend. Reid,

The Charters Towers Goldfield, p.32. 97

250 miners and an estimated 100 surface hands.

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left through an upcast shaft, without mechanical assistance.98At best, high surface temperatures made the system inefficient; in mines with only one shaft it was impossible. On other fields, single shafts were divided into separate compartments to provide an upcast and a downcast, but in Charters Towers the size of the shaft usually made this impracticable. As late as 1912, when there were twenty shafts between 1,500 and 3,000 feet deep on the Brilliant and Day Dawn reef systems, their aggregate area of unimpeded downcast was only 123 square feet.99 The only way to cope was to connect the underground workings of adjacent mines so as to use both shafts. That this was a mixed blessing was tragically demonstrated by an underground fire which ended the life of the Brilliant P.C. in October 1904. Carbon monoxide from burning mine timbers travelled through underground connections to kill three miners in the Brilliant Block and another three in the Mexican, as well as a member of the rescue team.100 In any case, managers of connected mines were often not particularly co-operative because each manager naturally wanted his shaft to be the downcast. Some of them resorted to a variety of dirty tricks that could interfere with the ventilation of connected workings.101 Even without such interference, miners working in levels below the connections did not benefit. An Inspector recorded temperatures of 110 degrees in the Brilliant Extended which, with a vertical shaft of 2,800 feet, was the biggest employer of underground miners on the field. It was even worse in the Brilliant Deeps where one hundred and fifty men worked nearly three thousand feet underground. Their only air came through a single shaft of three 4’ x 4’ compartments: it was commonplace for men to faint at the face.102

3 . 2 E P I L O G U E

After the failure of the Queen Cross Reef, Charters Towers’ gold yield fell rapidly, despite the introduction of the Wilfley table at the beginning of

98

Brilliant Extended installed a Cappel fan in 1897 and Brilliant Deeps

experimented briefly with a 4’8” Sirocco fan in 1912. 99

Report of the Royal Commission appointed to Inquire into the health of

miners, Queensland Parliamentary Papers, 1911, p.xv. There were seven

downcast shafts with an aggregate superficial area of 340 square feet. The

average shaft size was 7’ x 7’, compared with 12’ x 16’ or 16’ x 16’ which which

were normal in deep mines in Victoria. Circular shafts of about 18’ diameter

were used on the Rand. 100

AR, 1904, p.31. 101

AR, 1909, p.155. 102

In 1909 the Inspector of Mines admitted that “the conditions under which

some men have to work must be highly injurious to them...”, and added that “in

places the air was so heavily charged with dust that it was almost impossible to

enter them.” See AR, 1909, p.156; 1910, p.39; 1914, p.38.

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the century.103 For the first time in the history of the field there was no single fabulously rich mine to boost production. The most profitable operation at this stage was the old Mills Day Dawn United, by then well into its decline. Some investors turned their attention to the growing silver and base metal industry and, early in 1907 when metal prices were particularly high, the Ambrose Silver-Copper Mines and Rio Tinto companies were formed to mine in the Stockyard Creek district.104 Others held on to their faith in Charters Towers gold. Sometimes subsidised by a state government that feared the political and social consequences of the collapse of the state’s largest mining centre, they continued to search for yet another parallel reef below their exhausted workings.105 In 1907 the Brilliant P.C. was let on tribute106 and the following year the Day Dawn P.C. followed suit.107 In 1909, the Day Dawn Block and Wyndham, which only two years earlier had employed 174 miners and a large surface workforce at its mine and Burdekin Mill, was also handed over to tributors.108 In 1911 the Rockhampton field, dominated by the Mount Morgan mine, replaced Charters Towers as the state’s most important goldfield. As the deep mines brought up their last shifts, water rose in the complex system of underground workings. Although few mines were troubled by heavy ground water, for many years the field had encountered a growing problem with surface water leaching through the levels to accumulate in the deepest workings. The problem intensified as exhausted mines ceased bailing, hastening the demise of the few still open. Water added enormously to the difficulties of tributing parties which, quite unable to finance drainage, were pursued by rising water through consecutive levels until forced to abandon the mines. Hopes rose in 1916 when the new Labor government, in fulfilment of its election promise to "revive the mining industry",109 subsidised a Drainage Board to co-ordinate de-watering the central mines. It was too late. In 1917 the last of the big companies, the Brilliant Extended, brought up its final shift. Unlike so many of Queensland’s gold mining towns Charters Towers did not die when its big companies closed down. It remained the centre for small mining operations serviced by the Venus Battery (a state owned

103

The Wilfley table was invented in 1895 and was readily accepted in Charters

Towers. See Figure 13. The Frue Vanner was less successful on this field. See

Figure 14. 104

A.R. 1907, p.34. 105

For example Pfeiffer’s Day Dawn Gold Mines and Brilliant Deep Levels

received subsidies. The Venus Battery was sold to the Queensland State

Government during 1919. 106

AR, 1907, p.34. 107

AR, 1908, p.35. 108

AR, 1910, p.32. 109

DJ Murphy, et al. (eds.), Prelude to Power: The Rise of the Labour Party in

Queensland 1885-1915 (Brisbane 1970), p.296.

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mill from 1919) until the Second World War. While many of its domestic and commercial buildings moved to the coast and to the growing Cloncurry mineral field, Charters Towers remained an institutional hub for surrounding pastoral districts, and a monument to one of Australia’s greatest goldfields.

3 . 3 A P P E N D I X 1 : A P P R O X I M A T E L O C A T I O N O F T H E

M A I N M I N E S I N T H E S Q U A R E M I L E C I R C A 1 9 0 0

D A Y D A W N L I N E

At the end of the century Mosman Gold Mines was still working the old Eastward Ho, North Australia and Peabody reefs on the Day Dawn Ridge where the prospectors had first found gold. Also outcropping on the ridge was the Day Dawn reef whose first working, the Day Dawn PC, was surrounded by the group of mines that lay under the heart of the town. To its north, and running under the Boy’s School, were the disappointing five acres of the Day Dawn School Reserve mine. On the western boundary of the PC was the Day Dawn Block and Wyndham which owned a sixty acre lease as well as the right to mine under the western end of Mosman Street. It adjoined the three acres occupied by the Church of England and mined by the Day Dawn Church Lands Company. The sixty-four acre lease of the Day Dawn Gold Mines shared the western boundary of the Day Dawn Block and Wyndham, and joined on to the twenty-two acres of freeholds mined by Day Dawn Freeholds. Under the business area of Charters Towers, including the chief part of both Mosman and Gill Streets, lay Mills Day Dawn United.

B R I L L I A N T L I N E

The Brilliant mines occupied the ground from around Church Street out towards Queenton. The twenty-five acre PC ran from Boundary Street to the railway line; only a corner of it is actually within the square mile. The Brilliant Freeholds stretched from its western boundary to Church Street on the southern side of Gill Street. On its south-east boundary lay the Victory, a fifty acre lease. The northern portion of the Brilliant group comprised the Brilliant Extended (seventy-five acres north of the Brilliant and St George) and the Brilliant Deep Levels (eighty acres north of the Brilliant Block). This ground had been taken up in 1891 as the Brilliant Extended Block. The six acre Phoebe, west of the Brilliant and St George, had Kelly’s Queen Block (eight and a half acres) to its north, and further north again was the twenty-five acre Brilliant Central which incorporated the ground of the old Bryan O’Lynn and provided access to the East Mexican.

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3 . 4 A P P E N D I X 1 A : S K E T C H M A P O F T H E S Q U A R E M I L E

3 . 5 A P P E N D I X 2 : B R I E F D E S C R I P T I O N O F T H E

S Q U A R E M I L E L E A S E S

M I L L S D A Y D A W N U N I T E D

Situated half a mile east of the post office, this was the biggest producer on the field. The shaft of the Mills Day Dawn United was situated on ground secured by Thomas Mills in an amalgamation in 1883. It cut the Day Dawn lode at 1,049 feet. The first crushings were not obtained until 1889, and even then were very poor. During the following two years, exploration revealed shoots of both the Day Dawn and the Talisman reefs which made the mine extremely prosperous between 1891 to 1895. These were exhausted by 1896 and the next seven years were spent prospecting before a lower shoot was found on the eastern side of the lease. This was worked from 1905 to 1911, after which production declined. In 1909 the company purchased a controlling interest in the Burdekin Mill at Sellheim. The mine was let on tribute in 1914 and closed in 1919. Mills Day Dawn United produced 509,873 tons of ore for 430,435 ounces of

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bullion and $824,724 in concentrates. Estimated gold production 447,000 ounces.

P F E I F F E R ’ S D A Y D A W N

Situated 20 chains southwest of the post office. The ground was worked between 1896 and 1904 as the Day Dawn Freehold Consolidated. Between 1906 and 1914 it was worked as Pfeiffer’s Day Dawn. It cut the Day Dawn lode at 1,827 feet and again at 1,989 feet. It then followed the hanging wall by underlie to 2,619 feet. Four of its levels were between 1,000 and 2,000 feet long – but the lower six levels were much shorter. Pfeiffer’s Day Dawn produced 35,965 tons of ore for 27,077 ounces of bullion and $22,778 in concentrates. Estimated gold production 24,500 ounces.

D A Y D A W N B L O C K A N D W Y N D H A M

Situated 40 chains southwest of the post office. The ground was worked from 1880 to 1912. It included the old workings of the Empress of the North, Day Dawn 3W and 4AW. There were three shafts, Number 1 was vertical to 475 feet then underlie to 1,050 feet. Number 2 was underlie to 1,994 feet. Number 3 was vertical to 568 feet then underlie to 1,918 feet. The lease was a combination of the land in front of the Day Dawn PC which was taken up in 1880 by Thomas Mills, and Mills’ Wyndham Mine to the west of the Block. The company was formed in 1882 and the following year cut the lode to reveal a six foot reef. In 1886 the property was sold to an English company, despite rumours that the richest ore was already worked out. By 1903 the ore reserves on the Day Dawn reef were becoming depleted and worked started on the Talisman reef which gave payable crushings to 1906. Three years later the company went into voluntary liquidation and the mine was worked by tributors until 1912. Day Dawn Block and Wyndham produced 589,531 tons of ore for 546,871 ounces of bullion, $47,810 in concentrates. Estimated gold production 440,000 ounces.

D A Y D A W N P C

Situated 40 chains south of the post office. It was worked from 1874 to 1917. There were three shafts, two of which were underlies on the Day Dawn reef. The upper levels extended the full width of the lease, the lower levels were shorter. The main Day Dawn lode exploited in this mine was between 1 and 2 feet wide and returned over 1 ounce per ton. From level four an underlie shaft followed what they called the Macleay reef – but which was probably part of the Talisman. The mine had ten levels. Discussion of discovery and importance is in the body of the text. Day Dawn PC produced 281,138 tons of ore for 387,142 ounces of bullion, $17,708 in concentrates. Estimated gold production 312,000 ounces.

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N E W B R I L L I A N T F R E E H O L D S ( O R B R I L L I A N T F R E E H O L D S )

Situated 50 chains west of the railway station. It was worked from 1891 to 1917. The ground was taken up during the Brilliant boom of 1890, and a company formed the following year. The vertical shaft was sunk for three years before it cut the reef at 1,160 feet. The Brilliant reef was worked until 1903 when the company reconstructed and began prospecting for another payable lode. A shoot of the Day Dawn was discovered in 1907 at 1,680 feet and during the following five years was worked to a depth of 2,300 feet. As the Day Dawn petered out, attempts were made, in 1914 and 15, to discover more payable ore on the Brilliant. These were unsuccessful and the mine closed in 1917. New Brilliant Freeholds produced 126,162 tons of ore for 94,606 ounces of bullion, $266,362 in concentrates. Estimated gold production was 109,000 ounces.

B R I L L I A N T P C

Situated 30 chains southwest of the railway station. It was worked from 1886 to 1914. There was only one shaft. The ore reached a maximum of 12 feet in width but averaged between 1½ to 3 feet. Levels were driven down to 1,435 feet. The discovery and importance of the Brilliant PC is discussed in the body of the text. By 1903 the Brilliant shoot was practically worked out. From that year the company concentrated on prospecting for an extension of the Day Dawn, but without success. A fire in 1907 ended large-scale mining and, apart from the occasional tribute party, work ceased during 1914. The Brilliant PC produced 340,582 tons of ore for 403,198 ounces of bullion, $10,484 in concentrates. Estimated gold production 324,000 ounces.

B R I L L I A N T B L O C K

Situated 30 chains west of the railway station, the mine was worked from 1889 to 1917. The ground was not taken up until 1889 when a company, under the directorship of EHT Plant, was formed to sink for the Brilliant lode. They bottomed on the reef at 1,090 feet in 1891, and for seven years this shoot was successfully mined. When it petered out the company for other reefs. One small shoot on the Brilliant Extended boundary was worked from 1904 to 1906 and when this was exhausted the company sank a vertical shaft in search of the Day Dawn lode. Although it was uncovered at 2,000 feet, it was unpayable. A variety of other strategies were tried before the mine was handed over to tributors in 1916. Brilliant Block produced 158,636 tons of ore for 134,011 ounces of bullion, $2,304 in concentrates. Estimated gold production 107,000 ounces.

B R I L L I A N T D E E P S

Situated 40 chains northwest of the railway station on an 80 acre lease. The ground was taken up in 1891 as the Brilliant Extended Block. A three compartment vertical shaft was sunk about 2,000 feet but failed to cut the

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reef. In 1896 the company was reconstructed and the shaft carried to 2,550 feet where it intersected a lode which was not payable. A similar vein was passed through some 35 ft lower and by the end of 1896 this mine was 535 feet deeper than any other mine in Queensland and still not productive. In December of that year the directors announced they had again cut the reef, this time on payable gold. Then on Christmas morning at 1am, 25lb of dynamite exploded in a steel bucket on the edge of the shaft, completely wrecking the top fillings, cutting the winding cable, damaging machinery and closing the mouth of the shaft. From 1897 to 1899 344 tons of stone crushed for only 69 ounces. More gold was produced between 1908 and 1916 but none of the 5 companies that worked it ever paid a dividend. Brilliant Deeps produced 39,345 tons of ore for 22,852 ounces of bullion, $144,932 in concentrates. Estimated gold production 36,000 ounces.

E A S T M E X I C A N

Situated 30 chains southeast of the post office, the ground was worked from 1875. It included ground originally held as the Mexican, No 1 East Mexican and Great Eastern. These came under single control between 1899 and 1904 and again between 1908 and 1917. The Mexican lode was actually a hanging wall of the Day Dawn. There were three shafts. The main met the lode at 88 feet and again at 850 feet. The Great Eastern shaft was 1,324 feet and cut the lode at 403 feet. The old East Mexican cut the lode at 300 feet. The East Mexican produced 34,246 tons of ore for 29,191 ounces of bullion, $101,252 in concentrates. Estimated gold production was 36,000 ounces.

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3 . 6 A P P E N D I X 2 A : L E A S E S O N T H E S Q U A R E M I L E

3 . 7 A P P E N D I X 3 : G O L D P R O D U C T I O N O N C H A R T E R S

T O W E R S 1 8 7 2 - 1 9 4 5

Year Ore Gold Year Ore Gold tons fine oz tons fine oz

1872 12,054 25,030 1909 187,454 171,654

1873 37,937 59,797 1910 168,619 147,484

1874 33,097 49,876 1911 175,803 133,833

1875 36,876 55,422 1912 136,431 96,046

1876 37,500 54,092 1913 76,139 69,982

1877 36,030 69,760 1914 70,121 62,610

1878 35,509 59,482 1915 55,066 56,888

1879 41,584 63,715 1916 33,107 42,777

1880 39,285 67,773 1917 19,319 30,784

1881 45,378 65,410 1918 10,218 17,386

1882 45,663 63,242 1919 4,685 8,095

1883 44,602 55,264 1920 3,300 8,662

1884 52,561 86,228 1921 3,115 6,660

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1885 70,164 106,981 1922 2,895 5,016

1886 77,665 112,166 1923 1,742 2,787

1887 82,853 117,603 1924 693 1,350

1888 81,698 106,839 1925 131 539

1889 108,828 126,666 1926 88 238

1890 121,406 127,426 1927 159 297

1891 173,789 183,830 1928 51 147

1892 186,392 216,679 1929 105 219

1893 180,208 216,660 1930 393 367

1894 224,292 221,544 1931 1,911 1,335

1895 230,672 200,916 1932 2,907 2,415

1896 176,112 181,923 1933 5,824 3,880

1897 198,873 242,641 1934 6,581 4,670

1898 209,978 272,368 1935 7,598 5,441

1899 209,802 319,572 1936 10,666 7,994

1900 206,205 283,237 1937 20,565 12,933

1901 214,595 235,302 1938 25,858 12,693

1902 221,098 265,244 1939 37,021 14,431

1903 247,481 285,771 1940 39,825 13,895

1904 241,200 262,018 1941 30,969 10,506

1905 224,519 226,696 1942 6,091 6,657

1906 240,416 205,632 1943 1,713 1,774

1907 211,090 175,552 1944 1,510 1,684

1908 193,858 162,270 1945 1,290 1,614

Total production 1872 to 1945: 6,596,370 fine ounces of gold.

Source: KR Levingstone, Ore Deposits and Mines of the Charters Towers 1: 250,000 Sheet Area, North Queensland, GSQ Publication 57, Qld Dept Mines, Brisbane, 1974.

Figures

1. Map of Charters Towers goldfield in 1911 2. Line drawing of whip 3. Line drawing of whim 4. Line drawing of stamp battery 5. Line drawing of mortar box 6. Line drawing of gold retort 7. Line drawing of concave buddle 8. Line drawing of Brown and Stanfield concentrator 9. Line drawing of Wheeler pan 10. Line drawing of Berdan pan 11. Line drawing of settler 12. Line drawing of pigstye timbering 13. Line drawing of Wilfley table

Photographs

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1. The Pyrites Works on Towers Hill 2. Day Dawn Freehold 3. Workers at the Brilliant Mine

1 Map of Charters Towers goldfield in 1911

2 Line drawing of whip 3 Line drawing of whim

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4 Line drawing of stamp battery 5 Line drawing of mortar box

6 Line drawing of gold retort

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7 Line drawing of concave buddle

8 Line drawing of Brown and Stanfield concentrator

9 Line drawing of Wheeler pan

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10 Line drawing of Berdan pan 11 Line drawing of settler

12 Line drawing of pigstye timbering 13 Line drawing of Wilfley table

1. The Pyrites Works on Towers Hill

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2. Day Dawn Freehold

3. Workers at the Brilliant Mine

3 . 8 B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Blainey, Geoffrey, "A Theory of Mineral Discovery: Australia in the Nineteenth Century", in Economic History Review, XXIII, June 1970. Blane, William, “Report on the conditions and Modes of Working on the Goldfields of Queensland”, Department of Mines, Annual Report to the Under Secretary for Mines, 1901.

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Charters Towers Mining Warden Files, MWO 11A/T1-3, Queensland State Archives. Charters Towers Times Department of Mines, Annual Reports to the Undersecretary for Mines. Drew, Michael, "Queensland Mining Statutes 1859-1930", in Kennedy, KH (ed.), Readings in North Queensland Mining History, History Department JCU, Townsville, 1982. Green, David, The North Queensland Register’s Mining History of Charters Towers: 1872 to 1897, Northern Miner, Charters Towers, 1897. Lees, W, "The Charters Towers Goldfield" in The Goldfields of Queensland:, Outridge, Brisbane, 1899. Levingstone, KR, Ore Deposits and Mines of the Charters Towers 1: 250,000 Sheet Area, North Queensland, Geological Survey of Queensland Publication 57, Brisbane, 1974. MacLaren, J Malcolm, Queensland Mining and Milling Practice, Geological Survey of Queensland Publication 183, Brisbane, 1901. Marsland, LW, The Charters Towers Gold Mines: A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Town and Gold Field of Charters Towers, Queensland, With Full and Detailed particulars of the More Important Mines, Illustrated by Plans and Photographic Views, And of all Mining Companies carrying on Operations on the Field, Being a Handbook of Charters Towers and a Guide to Mining Investors, Waterloo Bro. and Leyton, London, 1892. McCarty, JW, British Investment in Overseas Mining 1880-1914, Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1960. Menghetti, Diane, "Extraction Practices and Technology on the Charters Towers Goldfield", North Australia Research Bulletin, No.8, September 1982. Menghetti, Diane, "The Gold Mines of Charters Towers", in Kennedy, KH (ed.), Readings in North Queensland Mining History, History Department JCU, Townsville, 1982.

Menghetti, Diane, "Isidor Lissner MLA", Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal, Vol.9, No.4, 1982. Menghetti, Diane, Charters Towers, Ph.D. thesis, James Cook University, 1984.

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Menghetti, Diane, "Mine and Town: Health and Safety on Charters Towers", Royal Historical Society of Queensland Journal, Vol.13, No.6, May 1988. Menghetti, Diane, I Remember: Memories of Charters Towers, History Department JCU, Townsville, 1989, reprint 1999. Menghetti, Diane, “Who Owned the Frontier?”, Journal of Australian Studies, No.49, 1996. Menghetti, Diane, `The Moral Economy of an Australian Crowd', in David Day (ed.), Australian Identities, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 1998. Murphy, DJ, Joyce, RB, & Hughes, Colin A, (eds.), Prelude to Power: The Rise of the Labour Party in Queensland 1885- 1915, Jacaranda, Brisbane, 1970. Newton, Joseph, Extractive Metallurgy, John Wiley, New York, 1967.

N O R T H E R N M I N E R

North Queensland Mining Register Parliamentary Papers of the Queensland Legislative Assembly Port Denison Times Pryor, EJ, Mineral Processing, Applied Science Publishers, London, 1974. Queenslander

Queensland Mines Department. Registers of Applications for Areas, 1872 A/20767, Queensland State Archives. Roderick, Don, Charters Towers and its Stock Exchange, National Trust, Townsville, 1977. Reid, JH, The Charters Towers Goldfield, Geological Survey of Queensland Publication 256, 1917.

Secretary for Public Works Files, COL/A 2340, Queensland State Archives. Stoodley, June, The Queensland Gold Miner in the Late Nineteenth Century: His Influence and Interests, MA thesis, University of Queensland, 1964.

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Stoodley, June, “An Early Aspect of Queensland Mining Law: The Area of Gold Mining Leases”, University of Queensland Law Journal, Vol.5, No.6, 1966. Tylecote, RF, A History of Metallurgy, The Metals Society, London, 1976. Votes and Proceedings of the Queensland Legislative Assembly

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4 HOUSING IN CHARTERS TOWERS

his essay was prepared by Dr Peter Bell who is a heritage practitioner with experience in a broad range of conservation. His particular

interest was in the timber housing of northern Queensland. The early housing of Charters Towers is very distinctive, which is not surprising, as it was shaped by unusual economic and social forces. It is the best place to see early North Queensland houses, because not only does the town clearly show their characteristic features - timber and iron construction, exposed frames, standard plans and roofs, simple symmetrical forms, wide verandahs, elevation on stumps and conventional mass-produced ornament - but it also has the largest number of those houses in existence. Charters Towers was one of the great nineteenth century mining towns of Australia, and it shows what happens when an isolated tropical community was rapidly formed in previously unsettled country, and then rose to a state of great prosperity over the next two decades. No Europeans lived in the Square Mile at the beginning of 1872, but within ten years it had become Queensland’s greatest goldfield, with a railway under construction from the coast. Thirty years later it was steadily producing ten tons of gold each year, and had grown into a community of about 25,000 people, the largest city in Queensland outside Brisbane, and indeed the largest in the northern half of Australia. It was the events of that remarkable thirty years that shaped housing and every other aspect of life in Charters Towers. One thing that distinguished this population from the surrounding pastoralists and other settlers was its international composition: the Australian-born rubbed shoulders with people from the British Isles, Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, America, New Zealand and China. The forms of housing that developed in this community were the product of twenty years experience on Australian and international goldfields, and ten years experience in settling the Queensland tropics. House owners and builders were able to draw on a wide range of experience, from Australian bush skills to a sophisticated imperial building construction industry. The early arrivals on Charters Towers were unsure of its potential, and spent little time or money on housing until the field’s economic value was proved. In these cautious circumstances miners either brought their own housing with them, or gathered local materials and made shelter by hand, so that the field in late 1872 was described as “dotted with tents and humpies”. (Brumby 1977, p. 1) No-one compiled a census of the early housing, but probably the most common dwelling in the field’s first two years was a canvas tent. We can see the “humpies” in early photographs

T

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of the field; they are mostly huts with vertical slab walls, roofed with bark. Further developments in housing were an expression of the occupant’s confidence in the future of the Charters Towers field. As early as 1873 public and commercial institutions such as the Millchester Court House and the Queensland National Bank were being constructed out of sawn timber with corrugated iron roofs, and storekeepers and some private householders also began to use these materials as they became available. A mining field is different from a farming or grazing community in its transport infrastructure and the consequent availability of imported goods. By the 1870s, underground mining had become a highly mechanised business, requiring access to sophisticated industrial materials. Mining companies needed steam engines, boilers, winders, crushing machinery and pumps, all of which had to be housed in buildings erected quickly at low cost. Thus in less than two years from the discovery of gold, materials such as sawn timber and corrugated iron, glass and nails were being imported to the field in large quantities, and bricks were being manufactured locally to supply the industry’s demand for boiler smokestacks and machinery foundations. However, as long as the viability of the field remained in doubt and costs were high, many people continued to live in tents and bark huts. Probably two events in the first ten years did more than anything else to establish the physical form of Charters Towers buildings for the decades to come: in 1878 the Day Dawn mine struck a rich ore body at depth, boosting faith in the goldfield, then in 1882 the railway arrived from Townsville, dramatically lowering the cost of imported goods. From that time onward, both confidence and cheap transport combined to establish the staple building materials of Charters Towers as sawn timber framed walls with corrugated iron roofs. The range of housing types built in the next twenty years showed a great deal of variety, but certain strong themes are evident. First is the standardisation of house forms, that is the arrangement of rooms, most easily described by reference to the floor plan, and quickly understood visually by looking at the house’s roof. The single most common house form built in Charters Towers between 1872 and 1915 was the two-roomed cottage. This was a small house intended to accommodate a bachelor miner or small family, with two rooms side-by-side under the core roof. The cottage was built on low stumps parallel to the street with a small setback, and was asymmetrical in floor plan, with the central front door entering the larger room. The house was usually built with a front verandah, and the core roof might be either gabled or hipped. The rear skillion verandah was usually enclosed

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to form one or two more rooms, and if one of these was the kitchen, a fireplace or stove recess would be let into its rear or side wall. Houses of this general form were derived from rural workers’ cottages in the British Isles, and they were built in enormous numbers in a variety of materials throughout Australia. They housed the majority of the workforce in mining towns from Moonta to Kalgoorlie and Broken Hill. In Australian minds they are so closely associated with the mining industry that, whether they are in the suburbs of the capital cities or in dairy farming communities, people refer to them as “miners’ cottages”. The second common house form was the four-roomed house, a larger building designed to accommodate a family, with four rooms symmetrically arranged about a central hallway to form a core nearly square in plan under a pyramid roof. It too was usually built with an open front verandah, and had a kitchen attached to the rear verandah. It was usually built on a larger allotment with space for front and rear gardens, had a modest degree of ornamentation, and was often elevated on high stumps. As time moved on, both of these common house cores provided the basis for a number of more complex arrangements of extensions and verandahs. Either form usually came with verandahs or skillion extensions at front and rear, but could be further extended by the addition of verandahs to one or both sides, which could transform the character of the basic form. The simplest form of the four-roomed house, built as one of a row in the Square Mile in the early 1880s was a utilitarian timber box, but set on high stumps with wide verandahs on all four sides on a large allotment at Richmond Hill at the turn of the century, it became unexpectedly gracious and imposing. Climate, the mining economy and the culture of the immigrant population all played a part in determining the forms and material of housing in Charters Towers. While building materials were relatively cheap, labour was expensive in a gold mining town, and so builders adopted simple methods of construction using light standardised components which could be assembled on site without requiring much work or great skill. The construction technique used on almost every Charters Towers building site was the light stud frame, developed in England a hundred years earlier for lightweight farm sheds and cricket pavillions, and adopted enthusiastically in Australia in the early nineteenth century to provide cheap colonial housing. (Contrary to some authors’ opinions, it is not the same thing as the “balloon” frame of the USA.) The walls were framed with light posts or studs, and lined with horizontal boards.

3 Diagrams showing the typical two roomed and

four roomed cottages. [Peter Bell, Timber and

Iron Houses in North Queensland]

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Here the climate played a part in shaping the Charters Towers house. In Europe or southern Australia, the cold winter required a second layer of boards on the outside to trap an air layer for insulation. But in the benign climate of the north, a single skin of boards was enough. Hence the practice arose of reducing costs by leaving the timber frame exposed on the outside of the house. The technique had been pioneered in Townsville in 1865, and was adopted enthusiastically in Charters Towers a few years later. People from the south thought the houses looked unfinished, but it was quickly accepted by local people, and became one of the distinguishing features of the North Queensland house until well into the twentieth century. The other standard building material was corrugated galvanised iron for roofing. Imported from England In heavy bales, it was the almost universal roofing material of North Queensland houses. At first, all timber was shipped into the north from sawmills in Maryborough and Brisbane, but from 1876 onward, Charters Towers had its own mills, and logs were being sawn locally. However, low shipping costs meant that local millers still imported southern softwoods rather than milling difficult local hardwoods. Benjamin Toll established what would become the largest sawmill and building firm in Charters Towers in 1880, but even in his heyday he continued to import timber from Hyne and Sons’ mill at Maryborough. Brick was available to house builders in Charters Towers, but was almost never used because of the labour cost. Bricklayers expected to be paid £5 a week, which was more than many mine managers earned in Victoria. Brick was used for fireplaces and chimneys, but rarely for walls. Stone too was cheaply available - there were thousands of tons of granite available for the taking on the mine dumps - but the cost of employing stonemasons ruled it out as a building material. Stone was sometimes used for walling house yards, but only rarely to build a house. They existed in small numbers; in 1881 a newspaper advertisement offered a “four roomed stone cottage” for sale, but there is no sign of it today. (Northern Miner 2 July 1881) Earth construction was occasionally used too, for there is a report that during heavy rain a house “being partly of wattle and dab … gave out on Tuesday night, one of the side walls being melted away”. (Northern Miner 9 March 1882) Like the construction techniques and the materials, the details and ornamentation of Charters Towers houses were usually standardised and mechanised. The open verandahs with their dowel balustrades provided the principal opportunity for ornament, and fretsawn brackets in a range of catalogue designs adorned the tops of verandah posts. On two-roomed cottages that was often the extent of the decoration, but four-roomed houses usually had the posts elaborated with small cornice mouldings and stop chamfering, and a colour scheme articulated the details, with

4 Benjamin Toll’s Phoenix steam joinery works –

note fretsawn building details on ground.

[Courtesy of Bill Mann, Townsville]

5 Detail of sheetmetal acroterion and ventilator,

Charters Towers.[Bell]

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the main timber elements painted dark brown, green or red, and the brackets, mouldings and dowels picked out in white or cream. Sheetmetal work was also ornamented, with acroteria derived from Greek temple designs at the corners of guttering, and frilly edges on the hoods that shaded the side windows. The crowning glory of most pyramid roofs was a cylindrical sheetmetal ventilator topped with a spreading cone, also with a mechanically stamped frilly edge. These ostensibly removed hot air from the roof space by convection, but in practice were little more than a decorative finishing touch. Charters Towers has greater numbers of them than any other northern town. The similarity of many Charters Towers houses was not coincidence, nor was it at the request of the house buyers. In a highly competitive economic climate, builders cut their costs by offering a small range of designs, all built with exactly the same techniques. Many of the houses were prefabricated in the builders’ yards. In 1886, Griffith and Terry of Queenton advertised, “buildings of every description framed on the premises and sent out with competent workmen to any part of the field”, and in 1891 Richard Craven offered, “Cottages Prepared and Framed, ready for Erection.” Toll’s mill in 1889 was employing a workforce of 120 and turning out five framed houses each week. (Bell 1984, pp. 135-136) Of course there were grander houses in Charters Towers. Some of the mine managers, shareholders and merchants built themselves imposing houses, and a number of them still stand. Aldborough and Tower Villa are good examples of the houses of the wealthy, large, spacious and beautifully finished, although in plan they are simply expanded versions of the four-roomed house. The notion of a grand house changed over time. The first grand house in Charters Towers was built by Friedrich Pfeiffer beside his Day Dawn mine in about 1881. It was a remarkable house, conventional in its use of an exposed stud frame and roofing iron, but unlike any other northern house in its complex plan and multiple gabled and vaulted roof form. When it was built, Pfeiffer was probably the wealthiest person on Charters Towers, and this was the largest house that had ever been built there. Yet such was the rise and rise of housing standards in the Towers that twenty years later when Pfeiffer died, his obituary praised him for being “content with a humble home”. (North Queensland Register 16 March 1903) Two storey houses were very rare in Charters Towers. Only Ay Ot and Thornburgh survive today, and there were few if any others built. Thornburgh was by far the most ostentatious house ever built in Charters Towers, a conspicuous statement of mine owner E.H.T. Plant’s faith in the town. It is a grand brick Victorian mansion which is entirely outside the North Queensland building tradition, and would look completely at

7 Front elevation of Friedrich Pfeiffer’s house.

[Bell]

6 Detail of sheetmetal ventilator Thornburgh.

[Bell]

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home in an upmarket Melbourne suburb. The local newspaper called it “the largest, handsomest and most complete villa residence in this part of the North”. (Northern Miner 21 February 1890) This was an uncharacteristically modest statement for the Northern Miner, for it was the handsomest house in any other part of the North as well. However, it is a mistake to think that the prosperity of a gold mining town will produce large numbers of opulent mansions. For one thing, in a colonial culture, many people saw a goldfield as an opportunity to accumulate wealth and return to metropolitan society to spend it - “get rich and get home” was the slogan of many - so that the wealth of Charters Towers built many more mansions in Melbourne and London than it did in the local area. Only a few exceptional magnates like Plant, Pfeiffer and his partner Paradies remained on the field after they became wealthy. Most local housing was built to provide accommodation for mine employees and their families. The Charters Towers companies provided no housing for their workers, and so house construction was dominated by speculators, who were usually builders. When there was a mining boom underway and the mines were hiring labour, there was a demand for a great number of houses which had to be built quickly and cheaply in the face of intense demand and high labour costs. In a prosperous period in 1891, one newspaper reported that “there is not an empty habitable house on Charters Towers, despite the fact that cottages are being run up like magic. One builder alone has fifty carpenters working for him.” (Queenslander 21 November 1891) Obviously houses “run up like magic” were not likely to be luxurious, and the most typical product of a mining boom was not gracious mansions like Thornburgh, but a few more streets of identical cheaply-built two-roomed cottages. The housing stock built in Charters Towers from 1872 onward underwent many changes over time. Fire and termites took a steady toll of older houses, and many of the early modest cottages were replaced by larger ones as time passed. The increasing prosperity of the 1880s and 1890s encouraged large-scale replacement of housing. The mining wardens’ lease plans from the early 1880s frequently show cottages dotted on and around the mining leases, but almost none of those houses stand on those sites today. Very few buildings in Charters Towers survive from the 1870s; indeed Friedrich Pfeiffer’s house on the Day Dawn ridge, now the Latter Day Saints church, is probably one of the oldest houses left in the town. (It may also be the oldest house with an exposed stud frame standing in North Queensland.) The houses that remained also underwent change. The timber-framed house lends itself to modification and extension, and there are few early houses in Charters Towers that have not had something added to them. Two-roomed cottages have frequently been extended to the rear, and

8 Detail of sheetmetal window eave, Millchester.

[Bell]

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most houses of any size have had bathrooms, laundries and toilets – originally banished to the back yard before sewerage and septic tanks – added to the back verandah. A cheap way to add an extra bedroom or two was to enclose a verandah, and relatively few houses in Charters Towers still have their original open verandahs. Some of the early houses were not as well designed for the climate as they might have been, and there are a variety of modifications to improve climatic performance, especially in summer. Verandahs are shaded with latticework, with blinds of canvas or drop-down wooden laths wired into rolls, or with wooden louvres. A characteristic feature of Charters Towers houses is the verandah eave, an outward extension of the roof supported on struts from the verandah posts, to further protect the verandah from sun and rain. Another common climatic modification does not involve change to the building, but planting trees to shade the house, usually exotics with dense foliage like mangoes, figs or bougainvillea. Very few new houses were built in Charters Towers after the boom about the turn of the twentieth century, and the gold mining industry began to wind down slowly in the following years. By 1915 there were very few mines left open, and the population of Charters Towers had fallen by a third. The community made the ingenious and very successful decision to convert the town to education as its new staple industry, and Charters Towers has been northern Australia’s major boarding school centre since, saving it from the worst of the economic decline which most former mining towns experience. Even so, there were thousands of redundant houses in Charters Towers. A new local building industry arose, dismantling houses and railing them to new sites in the railway towns of western Queensland, to the sugar towns of the Burdekin delta, and to the growing suburbs of Townsville. The great movement of houses out of Charters Towers was one of the important themes of North Queensland housing history in the 1920s and 1930s. The exodus can still be seen in the suburbs of South Townsville and Railway Estate, where many houses dating in appearance from the 1880s and 1890s stand on allotments not surveyed until the 1920s. There were probably about 6,000 houses in Charters Towers in 1901, and perhaps 1,000 of those houses still stand in the town today. They form the finest collection of traditional North Queensland housing in existence, being generally more elaborate in detail and in more original condition than those of larger towns like Townsville, Mackay or Cairns. There are a number of reasons for this; first, Charters Towers was much bigger and wealthier than any of those towns in the period when the houses were built, and simply had far more houses originally. Second, the process of attrition and removal that went on over many decades probably favoured the retention of the more attractive and better-built houses. Third,

9 Top: two roomed cottage with open verandah

and rear extension – since demolished. Centre: Four-roomed house with front and rear

verandahs enclosed.

Bottom: Four-roomed house with encircling verandahs enclosed. [Bell]

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Charters Towers experienced less economic pressure and demand for housing renewal throughout most of the twentieth century. Fourth, the drier upland climate of Charters Towers is kinder to timber buildings than the wetter coastal plain, and the houses of the Square Mile have never been seriously damaged by cyclones.

4 . 1 C H A R T E R S T O W E R S : R E F E R E N C E S

Bagnall, Fred, Northern Cavalcade: a History of Charters Towers and Other Stories, Northern & Western Duplicators, Charters Towers, 1979 Bagnall, Fred, People in Charters Towers and Dalrymple Shire, Printmate, Charters Towers, 1988

Bell, Peter, "Houses in North Queensland Mining Towns 1864-1914", in K.H. Kennedy (ed), Readings in North Queensland Mining History, Volume One, James Cook University of North Queensland, 1980, pp. 299-328. Bell, Peter, 'Houses and Mining Settlement in North Queensland 1861-1920', PhD thesis, James Cook University, 1982 Bell, Peter, "The Balloon Frame Myth", Journal of Australian Studies, 12, 1983, pp. 53-66 Bell, Peter, Timber and Iron: Houses in North Queensland Mining Settlements 1861-1920, St Lucia, 1984 Bell, Peter, "Stud Framing: the Empire Strikes Back", Architecture Australia 76, No. 2, 1987, pp. 81-84. Bell, Peter, "'Square Wooden Boxes on Long Legs': Timber Houses in North Queensland", Historic Environment 6, Nos. 2 & 3, 1988, pp. 32-37 Bell, Peter, "A Brief Survey of Timber Wall Construction Techniques in Australia", in David Reynolds (ed), Timber & Tin: Proceedings of the First ICOMOS New Zealand Conference on the Conservation of Vernacular Structures, Auckland, 1992, pp. 52-58 Bell, Peter, "The Fabric and Structure of Australian Mining Settlements", in Bernard Knapp, Vincent Pigott & Eugenia Herbert (eds), Social Approaches to an Industrial Past: the Archaeology and Anthropology of Mining, Routledge, London, 1998, pp. 27-38 Besley, Robyn, 'Charters Towers - Cradle of North Queensland', in Queensland Government Mining Journal, vol. 78, no. 910, August 1977, pp. 360-63

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Black, Ian, and Company, 'Charters Towers: a report', Charters Towers City Council, Charters Towers, 1975 Bolton, Geoffrey C., 'Labour comes to Charters Towers', in Kennedy, Kett, H. (ed.), Readings in North Queensland Mining History, James Cook University, Townsville, 1980, vol. 1, pp. 145-60 Brumby. Michael, One Square Mile, Charters Towers and Dalrymple Archives Group, Charters Towers, 1997 Brumby. Michael, Beyond the Bin: some of the places and some of the people of Charters Towers, North Queensland, Charters Towers and Dalrymple Archives Group, Charters Towers, 1998 Brumby. Michael, Charters Towers: new century new nation 1901, Charters Towers and Dalrymple Archives Group, Charters Towers, 2001 Colwell, L.J., ‘Some Aspects of Social Life in Charters Towers 1872-1900’, BA Hons thesis, James Cook University, 1969 Green, David, The North Queensland Register's Mining History of Charters Towers, 1872 to 1897, Northern Miner Printing and Publishing Company, Charters Towers, 1897 Hayston, Sharon, A., ‘Interaction of Religion and Society in Charters Towers 1872-1900’, BA Hons thesis, JCU, 1976 Kingston, Margo, 'Charters Towers: the luckiest town in Australia', Times on Sunday, 27 December 1987, pp. 23-24 Levingston, K.R., 'Some Historical Influences on Charters Towers Goldfield', in Queensland Government Mining Journal, vol. 87, no. 1021, December 1986, pp. 488-94 Lewis, Miles, Victorian Primitive, Greenhouse Publications, Melbourne, 1977 Marsland, Luke W., The Charters Towers Gold Mines: A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Town and Goldfield of Charters Towers, Queensland, with Full and Detailed Particulars of the More Important Mines, Illustrated by Plans and Photographic Views, and of all Mining Companies Carrying on Operations on the Field, Being a Handbook of Charters Towers, and a Guide to Mining Investors, London, 1892 Mcleod, W.A., ‘The Charters Towers Goldfield’, in Mining and Engineering Review, 5, October, 1911

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Menghetti, Diane, 'The gold mines of Charters Towers', in Kennedy, Kett H. (ed.), Readings in North Queensland Mining History, James Cook University of North Queensland, Townsville, vol. 2, 1982, pp. 49-119 Menghetti, Diane, 'Extraction Practices and Technology on the Charters Towers Goldfield', in North Australian Research Bulletin, no. 8, September 1982, pp. 1-30 Menghetti, Diane, 'Charters Towers', PhD thesis, James Cook University, 1984 Menghetti, Diane, 'Mine and town: health and safety on Charters Towers', in Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, vol. 13, no. 6, May 1988, pp. 215-228 Menghetti, Diane, I Remember: memories of Charters Towers, Records of North Queensland History, no. 3, Department of History and Politics, James Cook University, Townsville, 1989 Miles, Jinx, 'National Trust Properties - Charters Towers', in National Trust of Queensland Journal, April 1992, p. 26 Neale, Joan, ‘Charters Towers and the Boer War’, BA Hons thesis, James Cook University, 1980 Roderick, Don., Charters Towers and its Stock Exchange, National Trust of Queensland, Townsville, 1977 Roderick, Don, The Town They Called 'The World': Charters Towers, Boolarong Publications, Brisbane, 1984 Sumner, Ray, Settlers and Habitat in Tropical Queensland, James Cook University of North Queensland, 1974 Sumner, Ray, “Influences on Domestic Architecture in Charters Towers”, Queensland Heritage 3, 1976, pp. 39-48 Symes, S., 'Charters Towers', in Australia ICOMOS Newsletter, vol. 1, no. 3, 1978 Walker, Meredith, 'Charters Towers: a report on items of specific historic, architectural and townscape significance', National Trust of Queensland, Brisbane, 1978

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APPENDIX: BIBLIOGRAPHY

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5 APPENDIX: BIBLIOGRAPHY

he following bibliography has been compiled from the bibliographies of all members of the project.

A Allom Lovell Architects: Brisbane, The Stock Exchange Arcade, Charters Towers. [Draft Report], 2001. Allom Lovell Architects: Brisbane, The Venus Battery, Charters Towers. [Draft Report], 2001. Allom Lovell Architects: Brisbane, Towers Hill, Charters Towers. [Draft Report], 2001. Allingham, Anne, Taming the Wilderness: The First Decade of Pastoral Settlement in the Kennedy District. Townsville: James Cook University of North Queensland, 1977. Australian Dictionary of Biography. Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 1974.

B Bagnall, Fred, Northern Cavalcade: a History of Charters Towers and Other Stories, Northern & Western Duplicators, Charters Towers, 1979 Bagnall, Fred, People in Charters Towers and Dalrymple Shire, Printmate, Charters Towers, 1988

Bell, Peter, "Houses in North Queensland Mining Towns 1864-1914", in K.H. Kennedy (ed), Readings in North Queensland Mining History, Volume One, James Cook University of North Queensland, 1980, pp. 299-328. Bell, Peter, 'Houses and Mining Settlement in North Queensland 1861-1920', PhD thesis, James Cook University, 1982 Bell, Peter, "The Balloon Frame Myth", Journal of Australian Studies, 12, 1983, pp. 53-66 Bell, Peter, Timber and Iron: Houses in North Queensland Mining Settlements 1861-1920, St Lucia, 1984 Bell, Peter, "Stud Framing: the Empire Strikes Back", Architecture Australia 76, No. 2, 1987, pp. 81-84.

T

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Bell, Peter, "'Square Wooden Boxes on Long Legs': Timber Houses in North Queensland", Historic Environment 6, Nos. 2 & 3, 1988, pp. 32-37 Bell, Peter, "A Brief Survey of Timber Wall Construction Techniques in Australia", in David Reynolds (ed), Timber & Tin: Proceedings of the First ICOMOS New Zealand Conference on the Conservation of Vernacular Structures, Auckland, 1992, pp. 52-58 Bell, Peter, "The Fabric and Structure of Australian Mining Settlements", in Bernard Knapp, Vincent Pigott & Eugenia Herbert (eds), Social Approaches to an Industrial Past: the Archaeology and Anthropology of Mining, Routledge, London, 1998, pp. 27-38 Besley, Robyn, 'Charters Towers - Cradle of North Queensland', in Queensland Government Mining Journal, vol. 78, no. 910, August 1977, pp. 360-63 Black, Ian, and Company, 'Charters Towers: a report', Charters Towers City Council, Charters Towers, 1975 Blainey, Geoffrey, "A Theory of Mineral Discovery: Australia in the Nineteenth Century", in Economic History Review, XXIII, June 1970. Blane, William, “Report on the conditions and Modes of Working on the Goldfields of Queensland”, Department of Mines, Annual Report to the Under Secretary for Mines, 1901. Bolton, Geoffrey C., 'Labour comes to Charters Towers', in Kennedy, Kett, H. (ed.), Readings in North Queensland Mining History, James Cook University, Townsville, 1980, vol. 1, pp. 145-60 Bolton, Geoffrey, A Thousand Miles Away: A History of North Queensland to 1920.Canberra: ANU, 1972. Brumby. Michael, Charters Towers: new century new nation 1901, Charters Towers and Dalrymple Archives Group, Charters Towers, 2001 Brumby, Michael and Robyn Barrie. A Century of Playing the Game: The First 100 Years of Schooling at Richmond Hill State School, Charters Towers, 1895 – 1995. Charters Towers: Richmond Hill Parents and Citizens Association, 1995. Brumby, Michael Muskets and Mantlets: A Brief History of the Life and Times of the Charters Towers Rifle Range 1885 – 1995. Charters Towers, 1996. Brumby, Michael, One Square Mile: Re-discovering the Buildings and the Life of Mosman, Gill and Bow Streets, Charters Towers, North Queensland. Charters Towers, Charters Towers and Dalrymple Archives Group, 1997.

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Brumby, Michael, Beyond the Bin: Some of the Places and Some of the People of Charters Towers. Charters Towers, Charters Towers and Dalrymple Archives Group, 1998. Brumby, Michael, Millchester State School: A Celebration of 125 Years, Including the Closed Schools at Queenton, Mount Leyshon, the Broughton and King’s Gully. Charters Towers, Millchester State School Parents and Citizens Association, 1999. Brumby, Michael, The Fourth Man. [manuscript] 2000. Michael Brumby. Charters Towers: New Century, New Nation, 1901, Charters Towers, Charters Towers and Dalrymple Archives Group, 2001

C Charters Towers and Dalrymple Archives Group: Johnson Collection. Charters Towers The City It Was - The City It’s Going to Be. Charters Towers: Charters Towers Jubilee Committee, 1922.

Charters Towers Mining Warden Files, MWO 11A/T1-3, Queensland State Archives. Charters Towers Times Colwell, L.J., ‘Some Aspects of Social Life in Charters Towers 1872-1900’, BA Hons thesis, James Cook University, 1969 Cunningham, Michael, Pioneering of the River Burdekin. [typescript] 1895. “Charters Towers the Premier Goldfield of Eastern Australia.” Supplement to Northern Miner, 09/10/1899.

D Department of Mines, Annual Reports to the Undersecretary for Mines. Drew, Michael, "Queensland Mining Statutes 1859-1930", in Kennedy, KH (ed.), Readings in North Queensland Mining History, History Department JCU, Townsville, 1982.

F Farnfield, Jean, Frontiersman: A Biography of George Elphinstone Dalrymple. Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1968.

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G Green, David, [editor], The North Queensland Register's Mining History of Charters Towers, 1872 to 1897, Northern Miner Printing and Publishing Company, Charters Towers, 1897 Gray, Robert, Reminiscences of India and North Queensland. London: Constable,1913.

H Hayston, Sharon, A., ‘Interaction of Religion and Society in Charters Towers 1872-1900’, BA Hons thesis, JCU, 1976 Henderson, Bill, Interview 1996. The Heritage of Australia: The Illustrated Register of the National Estate, South Melbourne: Macmillan, 1981.

J Jack, Robert Logan, Report on the Geology and Mineral Resources of the District Between Charters Towers Goldfield’s and the Coast. Brisbane: GSQ, 1879. Janecek, Joe, an Early History of Charters Towers [manuscript] 2001. John Oxley Library: OM 64 - 19/62: Sir Thomas McIllwraith/ Palmer Papers.

K Kingston, Margo, 'Charters Towers: the luckiest town in Australia', Times on Sunday, 27 December 1987, pp. 23-24

L Lees, W, "The Charters Towers Goldfield" in The Goldfields of Queensland:, Outridge, Brisbane, 1899. Levingstone, KR, Ore Deposits and Mines of the Charters Towers 1: 250,000 Sheet Area, North Queensland, Geological Survey of Queensland Publication 57, Brisbane, 1974. Levingston, K.R., 'Some Historical Influences on Charters Towers Goldfield', in Queensland Government Mining Journal, vol. 87, no. 1021, December 1986, pp. 488-94

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Lewis, Miles, Victorian Primitive, Greenhouse Publications, Melbourne, 1977

M MacLaren, J Malcolm, Queensland Mining and Milling Practice, Geological Survey of Queensland Publication 183, Brisbane, 1901. Marsland, LW, The Charters Towers Gold Mines: A Descriptive and Historical Account of the Town and Gold Field of Charters Towers, Queensland, With Full and Detailed particulars of the More Important Mines, Illustrated by Plans and Photographic Views, And of all Mining Companies carrying on Operations on the Field, Being a Handbook of Charters Towers and a Guide to Mining Investors, Waterloo Bro. and Leyton, London, 1892. McCarty, JW, British Investment in Overseas Mining 1880-1914, Ph.D. thesis, University of Cambridge, 1960. Mcleod, W.A., ‘The Charters Towers Goldfield’, in Mining and Engineering Review, 5, October, 1911 Menghetti, Diane, 'The gold mines of Charters Towers', in Kennedy, Kett H. (ed.), Readings in North Queensland Mining History, James Cook University of North Queensland, Townsville, vol. 2, 1982, pp. 49-119 Menghetti, Diane, 'Extraction Practices and Technology on the Charters Towers Goldfield', in North Australian Research Bulletin, no. 8, September 1982, pp. 1-30 Menghetti, Diane, 'Charters Towers', PhD thesis, James Cook University, 1984 Menghetti, Diane, 'Mine and town: health and safety on Charters Towers', in Journal of the Royal Historical Society of Queensland, vol. 13, no. 6, May 1988, pp. 215-228 Menghetti, Diane, I Remember: memories of Charters Towers, Records of North Queensland History, no. 3, Department of History and Politics, James Cook University, Townsville, 1989 Menghetti, Diane, "Isidor Lissner MLA", Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal, Vol.9, No.4, 1982. Menghetti, Diane, “Who Owned the Frontier?”, Journal of Australian Studies, No.49, 1996.

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Menghetti, Diane, `The Moral Economy of an Australian Crowd', in David Day (ed.), Australian Identities, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne, 1998. Miles, Jinx, 'National Trust Properties - Charters Towers', in National Trust of Queensland Journal, April 1992, p. 26 Murphy, DJ, Joyce, RB, & Hughes, Colin A, (eds.), Prelude to Power: The Rise of the Labour Party in Queensland 1885- 1915, Jacaranda, Brisbane, 1970.

N Neal, Joan, Beyond the Burdekin: Pioneers, Prospectors, Pastoralists A History of the Dalrymple Shire 1879 – 1979. Charters Towers: Mimosa Press, 1984. Neale, Joan, ‘Charters Towers and the Boer War’, BA Hons thesis, James Cook University, 1980 Newton, Joseph, Extractive Metallurgy, John Wiley, New York, 1967. North Queensland Mining Register North Queensland Register Christmas Numbers 1892 – 1903. Northern Advocate. Northern Mining Register Christmas Number, 1891.

P Parliamentary Papers of the Queensland Legislative Assembly Port Denison Times Powell, Elsa Interview October, 2001. Pryor, EJ, Mineral Processing, Applied Science Publishers, London, 1974.

Q Queensland: A Narrative of Her Past Together With Biographies of Her Leading Men. Brisbane: Alcazar, 1900. Queensland Census Districts, 1881 [Kennedy] [map]

Queensland Government Gazette 1861 - 1914. Queensland Government Mining Journal Special Issue for the Glasgow International Exhibition, 1901.

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Queensland State Archives: CLO/N17 @microfilm Z4346: Register of Runs Under the Unoccupied Crown Lands Occupation Act in the Pastoral District of Kennedy. Queensland State Archives: CHA/N1 CTCC Valuation Register 1877. Queensland State Archives: COL/A247. Queensland State Archives: 1/2 L 1868 NOT: Map of Kennedy District Showing Surveyed Roads and bush Tracks from Bowen, Townsville and Mackay to the Cape River Gold Fields 1868. Queensland State Archives : Mines Dpt Map # 4719, 1877? [map]

Queensland State Archives: L5/4 1876Refer to Plan of Sections Nos 1 to 15 town of Charters Towers, 1876. [map]

Queensland State Archives: L5/4 1910 Town of Charters Towers, 1910. [map] Queenslander

Queensland Mines Department. Registers of Applications for Areas, 1872 A/20767, Queensland State Archives.

R Ravenswood Miner. 1871 – 1872. Reid, JH, The Charters Towers Goldfield, Geological Survey of Queensland Publication 256, 1917. Roderick, Don., Charters Towers and its Stock Exchange, National Trust of Queensland, Townsville, 1977 Roderick, Don, The Town They Called 'The World': Charters Towers, Boolarong Publications, Brisbane, 1984 Roderick, Don, The Development of Charters Towers. [Typescript].

S Secretary for Public Works Files, COL/A 2340, Queensland State Archives. Sellheim, Phillip F, “History of the Charters Towers Goldfield: Its Rise and Progress” in Votes and Proceedings, 1887.

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Springer, Elena (Ed.) Charters Towers Centenary. Charters Towers: North Queensland Newspaper Co, 1972 . Ross Thomas (compiler). Street Directory, 1903. Sumner, Ray, Settlers and Habitat in Tropical Queensland, James Cook University of North Queensland, 1974 Sumner, Ray, “Influences on Domestic Architecture in Charters Towers”, Queensland Heritage 3, 1976, pp. 39-48 Sydney Mail, 17 August 1895. Symes, S., 'Charters Towers', in Australia ICOMOS Newsletter, vol. 1, no. 3, 1978

T Thomas, Ross The Classic Robert Logan Jack Map Collection. Charters Towers, 1999.

V Votes and Proceedings, 1881: “Report of the Department of Mines, Queensland for the Year 1880.” Votes and Proceedings, 1873: “Report of Superintendent Commissioner Jardine on the Gold Fields of Charters Towers, Broughton, The Cape River, and Normanby.”

W Walker, Meredith, 'Charters Towers: a report on items of specific historic, architectural and townscape significance', National Trust of Queensland, Brisbane, 1978 Watson, Donald and Judith Mckay, Queensland Architects of the 19th Century, Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1994.

21 May 1998 - charterstowers.qld.gov.au

Documents

Transcript of 21 May 1998 - charterstowers.qld.gov.au