Johannes Menge opens way for the copper boom at Burra that saved South Australia in 1840s

Boom copper finds at Burra fulfilled the expectations of Johannes Menge.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia

Johannes Menge has been dubbed the father of Australian mineralogy exploration.

Although Thomas Burr has been credited with making the first scientific study of South Australia’s geology, it was Menge’s enthusiasm that encouraged South Australia to be explored for minerals as well as wider settlement.

Shrugging off his short-lived (1837-8) employment on Kangaroo Island as the South Australia Company’s mine and quarry agent and geologist, Menge went to the mainland to explore on his own account an area from Mount Remarkable to Cape Jervis.

By the end of 1840, Menge had collected more than 200 mineral specimens and in 1841 his booklet, The Mineral Kingdom of South Australia was printed. Some of his first discoveries were the copper in the Adelaide Hills and opal – possibly an Australian first – at Angaston.

On his recommendation, George Fife Angas bought what Menge called New Silesia, which “would become the first mining country in all Australia”. The area eventually became the Barossa Valley, now world famous for wine.

Menge applied several times to be government geologist but the governor wasn't interested, nor did the colony have the money.

Menge’s exploits opened the way for that money by encouraging the discovery and development that led to a mining boom after the 1845 discovery of the Burra Burra copper that saved the fledgling colony. Before that, the first large metalliferous resource, the Kapunda copper deposit, happened in 1842. The mine was formally opened in 1844 by Menge, who also found more copper nearby.

In 1852, Menge, aged 63, walked to the Victorian goldfields where he died exhausted and ill in winter near Bendigo.