Guinea Airways born in 1926 to service the New Guinea gold mine backed by group of Adelaide investors
Adelaide-based Guinea Airways' Lockheed 10A VH-UXH, named C.V. Levien after the Guinea Gold's founder, in Port Moresby, New Guinea, in 1936. After working in Papua New Guinea that year, VH-UXH returned to become part of the company's service to Darwin from Parafield airport in 1937.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Guinea Airways emerged from an airline formed in Adelaide in 1926 to carry freight as part its parent company's gold-mining operations in New Guinea. The Bulolo area in Papua New Guinea is 64 kilometres inland from Lae and, before World War I, was in German New Guinea.
Several Australian miners, looking for gold, had crossed into the German colony but, after the war, it became an Australian mandate and many prospectors made fortunes there.
One of these was Cecil John Levien. He believed in the district’s potential and in 1926, at a meeting in Adelaide arranged by his friend W.P.A. Lapthorne, other Adelaide businessmen also offered support. They agreed to form a company, Guinea Gold No Liability, to test the Bulolo Flats.
As the operation grew, Levien saw that the only way to effectively mine the gold in reasonable quantities was to use dredges that would have to be carried over impenetrable jungles and steep mountains by aeroplanes.
To be able also to carry passengers plus carry freight, Guinea Gold in 1927 registered Guinea Airways Ltd and commissioned one regular plane. Guinea Airways’ Adelaide directors were C.V.T. Wells, W.P.A. Lapthorne, G. Jeffery, A. Scarfe and Levien.
By 1928, Guinea Gold had spent £45,000 on New Guinea operations including the air service, testing its Bulolo South leases, marking the Koranga lease and set up a field organisation. The goldfields continued to prosper with annual production, running into millions of pounds, sent to the Australian mints.
In 1932, experts estimated at least 15 years dredging still ahead in the Bulolo region. Other companies developed from Guinea Gold included Placer Development and Bulolo Gold Dredging. Guinea Gold later became a holding company with less interest in practical mining and more with options, leases and dividends. It wound up in 1968.
