Ilfracombe Iron Company
The company's operations included a blast furnace, ore mine, water wheel, village, and jetty.
rebuilt a disused timber-haulage tramway, terminating at Ilfracombe—now the southern part of modern-day Beauty Point—which it extended at both ends to reach its iron ore mine and its jetty.
It remains questionable that the blast furnace actually produced any pig iron, although the company announced in an ambiguous telegram that it had.
[1]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.
[3] There was an increase in pig-iron prices in the early 1870s, which led to the formation of a number of colonial era iron-making ventures in Australia.
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.
[5] It was located on private property at on a tributary of Middle Arm Creek, on the western flank of Peaked Hill, about 5 km south of the modern-day town of Beaconsfield.
A sample, consisting of "hematite and brown ore", had the following analysis: "Iron ......... 60.6 [%] Silica ........ 2.4 [%] Sulphur and phosphorus, though carefully sought for were not detected.
2000 of the shares were issued as fully paid, probably in exchange for properties, assets and services that the new company needed.
[9] The larger bell—about 2 feet high, 18 inches wide at mouth, and weighing 210 lbs[7] (95 kg)—was exhibited at the Vienna Exposition of 1873,[10] where it was inspected in September 1873 by Emperor Franz Joseph.
[9] The on-site manager was a civil engineer, Benjamin Hawkins Dodds, who had experience in the Scottish iron industry.
The construction of the furnace was the responsibility of a Swedish furnaceman, Karl Haine, with the advice of James Baird Thorneycroft from Scotland.
[13] In early November 1873, it emerged that the iron could not be run because the steam engine used to drive the blast machinery was too small.
Another larger engine was on its way from Melbourne, which would be used, "till the water wheel is ready to perform the work, and will then standby to be used in time of emergency, should such arise".
"[1] A local newspaper, the Launceston Examiner, expanded on this announcement by adding, "We believe the weight of the above is about two tons, and that the furnace was tapped on Thursday afternoon, a telegram having been sent to Mr Major that evening, asking him to arrange for shipping it by the Tamar, on her outward trip yesterday.
It seems that James Major accompanied the pigs to Melbourne, arriving on 29 November 1873, perhaps intending show off the iron to Victorian shareholders and others.
The necessary repairs to the furnace have been carried out, and fire-bricks of the proper description substituted for the inferior ones which were at first unwittingly put in, and active operations were commenced last Tuesday" [16 December 1874].
[18] However, on the same day as that report of production commencing, 20 December 1873, a prominent shareholder, Ayde Douglas, was on his way to the site to meet Major and Longden and find out for himself what was happening.
[19] Another attempt at smelting took place on 23 December 1873, using still larger blast cylinders made of wood at the site, after which the furnace was never relit.
We afterwards learnt, however, that this iron had not been fairly produced by any ordinary furnace process, and the subsequent collapse of the company showed this to be only too true.
If the iron was from another source—even allowing for the relatively remote location of the blast furnace—it would have been an elaborate deception, necessitating the involvement of at least some of the company's staff and management.
The unlikelihood of such a deception has led some historians to dismiss Just's editorial;[23] one seeing it as a "political statement",[24] by Just who was a shareholder in the rival British and Tasmanian Charcoal Iron Company.
[23] It therefore seems possible that the ongoing problem with the furnace—a mismatch between the relatively small capacity of the blast machinery and the size of the furnace—was enough to prevent the furnace reaching a suitable temperature to smelt iron ore and produce molten pig-iron.
However, even this does not prove conclusively that the furnace made molten pig iron that was successfully tapped, on 27 November 1873.
[19] It seems that the telegram announcement of 28 November 1873 was, most probably, part of a deliberate attempt to mislead[23]—designed to help attract the additional capital that the company so desperately needed—as was the subsequent report of production recommencing in December 1873.
The walls and roof were of sod, with cast-iron portholes along the sides to maintain the necessary restricted air flow for the charcoal-burning process.
There was a disused timber tramway for the former Ilfracombe saw-mill, which conveniently ran alongside the iron ore deposit.
An unused cast iron tapping block from the old furnace survives[34] and is on display at the Beaconsfield Mine & Heritage Centre.
The pattern for plaques intended to commemorate the aborted casting of pig-iron in "October 1873" is in the Queen Victoria Museum & Art Gallery, in Launceston.
[13] A replica of the iron bell that was shown at the Vienna Exposition of 1873 was cast in Tasmania in 2017; it is on display at the Beaconsfield Mine & Heritage Centre.
