Silverton, south of Adelaide in 1860s, a prelude to silver frenzy in Flinders Ranges set off by Silverton, NSW
The Talisker silver-lead minehead gantry and workings. The mine, started in the 1860s, and Silverton Lodge, formerly the post office and general store in its associated town of Silverton, near Cape Jervis, south of Adelaide, were placed on the South Australian heritage list.
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
Silver was the first mineral to attract early South Australian settlers’ interest – later rising to silver mania and even silver madness. Silver discoveryed at Glen Osmond, in the Adelaide foothills, led Australia's first metalliferous mine, the Wheal Gawler, in 1841.
The next major silver find was near Cape Jervis on the southern tip of Fleurieu Peninsula, south of Adelaide. This became the Talisker mine, prompting John Wrathall Bull to subdivide land nearby for the town of Silverton. The Talisker mine started in the 1860s with W.S. Whiting and captain W.H. Price among the miners, captains and leaseholders. The mine lasted until the 1920s but other deposits were worked south of Adelaide for a short time, but mainly without any great financial success, were the Aclare, Almanda, Kangarilla, Strathalbyn and Scott's Creek mines.
The first discovery of silver in the northern Flinders Ranges in 1869 was an outcrop at the Beltana. This was worked briefly under captain Samuel Terrell, while at Blinman.
The early 1880s sparked the first real interest in the silver deposits of the Northern Flinders Ranges after huge discoveries at another Silverton, just across South Australia's eastern border, along with Broken Hill in New South Wales. A shareholder in Silverton, New South Wales, mine, Charles Chapple, previously managing South Australian pastoral properties such as Umberatana, became a mining promoter with his advice to: “Pawn your … shirt to buy these shares”.
One of the first silver deposits mined in the northern Flinders Ranges was at Avondale..This mine, about three kilometres southwest from the Mount Lyndhurst Trig Hill, was worked in 1884 with captain James Adams in charge. The ore from this silver deposit was easily raised and a large quantity was sent to London where assaying showed it wasn’t considered payable. But the exercise was a reminder silver was present in the northern Flinders Ranges.
After his visit to the northern Flinders Ranges in 1884, government geologist Henry. Brown reported that galena (silver) had been found in Mount Serle area. Assays from these specimens by George Goyder Jnr. gave as much as 8 ounces of silver per ton.
Silver speculation started on a grand scale. Many silver companies – sometimes several a day with similar names –started in 1887-88. A newspaper reported that, after the failed promise of its agriculture, northern South Australia had been changed with “Winnowie, Wirrialpa, and Mount Serle silver fields are being opened up and promise to revolutionise the business of the North”.
Among these new mines was the Great Gladstone Silver Mining Company Limited, with its office at Comstock Chambers, King William Street, Adelaide. Among directors were W.B. Rounsevell, M.P., A. Frost. and William McConville. They proposed to work their property, near Yeralina Creek. During August 1887, Henry McConville of Avondale station, advertised for tenders to work the property. The tenderers were to supply their own rations, tents, powder and fuses. Six months later several shafts were sunk on the property but very little silver found.
Adding to the silver mining impetus, prominent members of parliament were mining company directors including W.A. Horn, J.W, Downer, L. Grayson, H. Gore, L.L.Turner, F. Basedow, J.C.F. Johnson, J.C, Bray, S. Tomkinson, J. Lancelot Stirling, C. S. Kington and Thomas Elder, Samuel Davenport, William Milne, G.C. Hawker and others.
Most of the silver companies never went beyond being marks on a map of the plains west of, and in, the Flinders Ranges. One a few were listed on the Adelaide Stock Exchange.
One of the best known and successful silver area in the northern Flinders was Ediacara, near Beltana. It became the last hope, into the early 20th Century, for a silver Eldorado in South Australia.
