British and Tasmanian Charcoal Iron Company

However, the venture failed, mainly because the chromium content of its iron ore reached levels that resulted in pig-iron of an unsaleable quality.

Soon after the first settlement in Northern Tasmania, at York Town in 1804, colonial settlers found that there were extensive deposits of iron ore in the hills to the west of the Tamar estuary.

However, this high price did not last long, as iron-making capacity increased and pig-iron was once again imported cheaply as ballast in sailing ships returning from England to Australia.

The iron ore had been discovered by Colonel William Paterson, soon after the first European settlement in Northern Tasmania at nearby York Town.

[15] The two main proponents of the venture, two Tasmanians, James Reid Scott (a local politician) and Thomas Cook Just (a newspaper proprietor and entrepreneur), inspected the iron ore deposit during May 1871.

[20] This was probably enough to convince the company that the Harrison furnace was not a viable means to produce the large quantities of iron upon which the success of the venture depended.

[24] The directors secured the services of Mr Robert Scott—previously manager of the Coltness Ironworks, near Glasgow, Scotland—to investigate and report on the prospects of the mine.

Scott was then appointed General Manager of the concern[25]—replacing William Leonard[24] who went on to work for the rival Derwent Iron Company.

[25] Acting on Scott's advice, work at the mine site was suspended, apart from cutting timber for charcoal and proving up the size of the ore deposit.

The new blast furnace that was erected at Port Lempriere (now the northern part of Beauty Point) was designed and supplied by Andrew Barklay & Sons, Caledonian Foundry, Kilmarnock, Scotland.

The company made attempts to closely control the feed to the furnace, employing analytical chemists in this work, but failed to resolve this problem.

Just wrote, "The closest supervision was given and details watched most minutely, but we could never get the iron sufficiently grey or soft, nor could we secure uniformity or quality.

A great deal of iron was equal to the best Scotch pig, but this would represent but a small proportion of a tapping, the bulk being white, crystalline and hard".

In March 1877, the directors were "anxiously awaiting reports from England, as to the value of their chromic pig-iron, over a thousand tons of which should by this time have arrived at London.

As well as the problems it was having with its metallurgy, the company had to consider the financing of its plans for its expansion—to add Bessemer steelmaking and rolling mills—that were beyond its means, under its then current capitalisation.

In early October 1877, the company leased five acres of land south of the Yarra River in Melbourne for the purpose of erecting a pipe casting works and planned to spend £20,000 on it.

Board papers and newspaper reports of the time record that the BTCIC was wound up and the assets transferred, at an agreed price of £38,000, to a new concern, 'The Purchase Company'.

[47] The aim of the new company was to resume iron production at Port Lempriere, by either solving the problem of chromium content or finding a market for the 'chromic pigs'.

As the company had constructed its Harrison furnace adjacent to the mine, the tramway was never intended to carry large cargoes of iron ore.

[53] By 1876, it was recognised that the horse-drawn tramway would prove inadequate to keep the large new blast furnace at its port supplied with iron ore, and would need to be replaced with a steam-powered railway.

On 9 January 1877, there was a collision between the locomotive and nine fully laden ore trucks that were rolling down the line toward the port, out of control at 50 to 60 miles per hour.

[65] The Tasmanian Charcoal Iron Company constructed a 310 feet long timber wharf, located in what is now a part of the township of Beauty Point but then known as Port Lempriere.

[16] The British and Tasmanian Charcoal Iron Company constructed a second longer timber wharf at the end of Redbill Point.

Coal was brought by sea from Bulli in New South Wales and unloaded at the wharf on Redbill Point, in close proximity to the works.

[62] In contrast, around the same time, the Fitzroy Iron Works in New South Wales was also using Bulli coal but needed to ship it first to Sydney and then send it by rail it to Mittagong.

; first to the Hartley Vale Shale Mine, then the Wongawilli Colliery—where it worked once again for an iron and steel venture—and finally to a blue-metal quarry at Berrima, where it was scrapped in 1942.

[69] Slag from the iron-making operations can still be found at Redbill Point, and there are traces of the railway formation and the mining activity at Anderson's Creek.

[17] Until the late 20th-Century there was still one derelict house standing at 'Leonardsborough'—it is now demolished, although materials from it were reused in the miner's hut display at the Beaconsfield Museum—and piles from the long wharf at the end of Redbill Point were still visible in 2012.

[70] The surplus pig-iron was sold off and some ended up in ornamental iron-castings and fencing in Northern Tasmania; the high chromium content reportedly continued to cause problems when these castings were melted down as scrap during the Second World War.

[71] Of the roughly 6,000 tons of pig-iron produced by the BTCIC's blast furnace, just one rusty pig is known to have survived; it is displayed at the Beaconsfield Mine & Heritage Centre.