John Campbell Miles (1883 – 1965) was the prospector and pastoral worker who discovered the mineralisation upon which the famous Mt Isa Mine was established in Queensland.

John Campbell Miles was born on 5 May 1883 in Melbourne. He was a wanderer and an adventurer from the time he ran away from school to work with a bootmaker. Blainey listed his quick progression of jobs as ploughman, miner, carter, railway navvy, wild-pig hunter and windmill repairer.

At the age of twenty-four (1907) he took a job as underground worker at Broken Hill, but stayed only until the following April before riding his bicycle 1,500 miles to the Oaks goldfield in north Queensland. While Miles would return to labouring work within a few months, his inauspicious prospect at the Oaks led to his discovery of the greatest twentieth century Australian mine.

From the Oaks, Miles worked as farm labourer in the Wimmera, then returned to Queensland where he spent ten years drifting from station to station, probably supplementing his wages by fossicking. After a brief visit to Melbourne in 1921, he decided to follow up the reminiscences of an elderly boundary rider who claimed to have seen gold on the Murranji Track, a cattle trail in the Northern Territory.

Read the rest of this entry »

Patrick (Paddy) Hannan (1843 – 1925) was one of the prospectors whose discovery of gold in 1893 paved the way to mining in  Kalgoorlie-Boulder, Western Australia.

Kalgoorlie/Boulder’s Golden Mile is recognised as the richest mile in the world. The gold mines and the nearby city owe their existence to the discovery of gold made by Patrick Hannan, Tom Flanagan and Dan Shea in the area in 1893.

Born in Ireland, Hannan, Flanagan and Shea had migrated to Australasia in the mid C19. Flanagan arrived in the early 1850s and went to the fields at Bendigo in Victoria; Hannan arrived in Melbourne in 1863 and most likely went to join relatives in Ballarat; and Shea probably arrived at the end of the 1860s.

By the time they came to the newly discovered fields to the east of Perth in Western Australia, all three had prospected or worked in mines in various colonies. In 1867, for instance, Hannan left for New Zealand and worked there for six years before returning to Australia. He arrived in WA in 1889, Flanagan probably in the same year, and Shea around 1892. Like many from the eastern colonies at that time, they found their way to the developing finds on the Yilgarn. Hannan’s accounts of his time in the west report that in 1892 he was working at Parker Range, south-east of Southern Cross.

Read the rest of this entry »

Australia is considered the third largest minerals producer in the world, larger than Canada. The value of minerals exports (including oil and gas) is forecast to reach A$116 billion in 2007-08. As a result, Australian mining, supply and service companies and expertise are in demand around the world. In fact 60% of global mines use software designed and produced in Australia.

Both, the enormous iron ore deposits in the Pilbara region of Western Australia and the vast bauxite reserves at Weipa in the state of Queensland are among the top ten most significant mining regions in the world. The mineral deposits at Mount Isa, Kalgoorlie, Kambalda and Bowen Basin, just to mention a few regions are all world class.

Australia is the world’s leading producer of bauxite and alumina, number two in gold, iron ore, uranium, lead, zinc, number three in nickel and silver, and the fourth biggest black coal supplier. This is by no means a complete list.

Like Canada, Australia has experienced many gold rushes and other mineral booms in the past century and a half, that helped open up unexplored parts of their vast interior, increase immigration as well as contributed to the country’s economic development.

As well-known Australian journalist Trevor Sykes once stated about his country’s mining history, “…a saga of tough men, iron-nerved gamblers, violence, death and glittering riches set against the backdrop of some of the most awful country on earth.”

Noted Australian history professor Geoffrey Blainey, who wrote the much acclaimed, “The Rush That Never Ended – A History of Australian Mining” stated in his book, “Australian prospectors found or pioneered new mining fields from the Rand to Rhodesia to New Zealand and the Klondike. Australian mining investors opened Malayan tinlands and New Guinea and Fiji goldfields, and there is hardly a mining field that has not used Australian innovations in metallurgy.”

The Australian Prospectors and Miners Hall of Fame has graciously given Toronto-based Republic of Mining.com permission to post individual profiles from their digital archives of some of the most famous Australians who have made major contributions to their mineral industry.

Opened in 2001 and located in the Western Australian city of Kalgoorlie, the site of one of the country’s most famous gold rushes, the Australian Prospectors and Miners Hall of Fame tourist attraction offers many exhibits that colorfully explain mining history as well as current industry practices. You can go 36 metres underground with a retired miner and see how mining was done at the turn of the last century with picks and shovels and wheelbarrows.

You can also watch a gold pour demonstration in the original 1920s Paringa Mine Gold Room or try gold panning in ponds on the property. Other galleries showcase a mineral collection, explain mining laws and regulations and environmental issues. The facility also has a major education outreach program.

The following website has more information on the Miners Hall of Fame as well as extensive archives profiling the men and women who made Australia such a global mining powerhouse: http://www.mininghall.com/Home.php