Consolidated Zinc

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Consolidated Zinc was an Australian mining company from 1905 to 1962.

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History

The company's initial operations focused on extracting zinc from mine tailings of the Broken Hill Ore Deposit at Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia. [1] The company was founded in Melbourne on 9 September 1905 as the Zinc Corporation Limited, to exploit residual zinc concentrations with an estimated value of $12 million in the 6 million tons of mine tailings deposited from mining activities over the previous 20 years. Key figures involved in the effort included William Baillieu and William Sydney Robinson. [2] Also involved was future U.S. president, but then a mining engineer working for Bewick, Moreing and Company, [3] Herbert Hoover, who inspected the tailing dumps in the group's investigations prior to formation of the company. [4] [5] [6] Other investors in the new company were Clark & Robinson (William Clark, Lionel Robinson and Company), and Arthur Terrell. [3]

They established concentrating mills at Broken Hill in 1905 and 1910, and in 1906 an associated sulphuric acid manufacturing plant whose first manager was (later Sir) H. W. Gepp. [7]

In 1911 they expanded into primary mining activities with the purchase of Broken Hill South Blocks Ltd (colloquially "South Blocks"), constructing underground mines [4] and mining for zinc, lead, silver [8] and gold [9] in the Broken Hill area.

In 1949, Zinc Corporation merged with the Imperial Smelting Corporation to become Consolidated Zinc. [9] In 1953, Haddon King became chief geologist. [10]

Over time, the company built up substantial financial resources but failed to develop suitable new mining projects. This led to a merger in 1962 with the Rio Tinto Company, a company who found itself in a complementary position of having substantial development opportunities but not enough financial resources with which to pursue them. The resulting company, known as The Rio Tinto – Zinc Corporation (RTZ), and its main subsidiary, Conzinc Riotinto of Australia (CRA), would eventually become today's Rio Tinto Group. [8]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ "Timeline". Rio Tinto website. Rio Tinto Group. Archived from the original on 19 December 2010. Retrieved 13 April 2009.
  2. ↑ Richardson, Peter. "Robinson, William Sydney (1876–1963)". Australian Dictionary of Biography . National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISSN   1833-7538 . Retrieved 13 May 2012.
  3. 1 2 "Broken Hill Zinc Tailings". The Age . No. 15, 788. Victoria, Australia. 16 October 1905. p. 7. Retrieved 10 February 2019– via National Library of Australia.
  4. 1 2 "Zinc Corporation & New Broken Hill Consolidated Ltd". The Silver City: Mining History. Line of Load Association. 2002. Archived from the original on 23 July 2009. Retrieved 15 April 2009.
  5. ↑ Hoover, Herbert (1951). The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover, Years of Adventure 1874-1920 . New York: The Macmillan Company. pp.  89, 102.
  6. ↑ Blainey, Geoffrey (1963). The Rush That Never Ended . Melbourne: Melbourne University Press. pp.  265–268.
  7. ↑ "Barrier Bits". The Critic . Vol. IX, no. 45. South Australia. 29 November 1905. p. 26. Retrieved 10 February 2019– via National Library of Australia.
  8. 1 2 "RTC-CRA: United for Growth" (PDF). Rio Tinto Review. Rio Tinto Group. September 2006. Archived from the original (PDF) on 27 March 2009. Retrieved 13 April 2009.
  9. 1 2 "Cobar's Mining History" (PDF). Primefacts. New South Wales Department of Primary Industries. February 2007. Retrieved 15 April 2009.
  10. ↑ D. F. Branagan. "King, Haddon Rymer Forrester (1905–1990)". Australian Dictionary of Biography . National Centre of Biography, Australian National University. ISSN   1833-7538 . Retrieved 9 May 2012.


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