Accordingly, he launched the Ravenswood Silver Mining Company Limited, with £60,000 in £1 shares, in Sydney in June 1882 and installed new plant and surface buildings.
This activity sparked a small rush for silver properties and by the end of 1883 there were rival companies on adjacent leases trying to intersect the lode at deep levels.
commissioned a mining engineer, Archibald Woodville Wilson to report on the prospects for King's freehold and M.L.
[1] In 1952, Thomas Heywood Connah, a government geologist, recommended further investigation of the front portion of the lode and Kean renewed equipment and continued mining.
The treatment works were erected by 1883 and consisted of a Hope's stone breaker, a set of 75-centimetre (30 in) rolls, a Hancock jig, 35-centimetre (14 in) raff wheel, pulleys and trommels; and the workforce doubled to 46 men.
[1] The township of Totley was surveyed in 1886 and the King family dominated the lives of the residents: Richard was the managing director of the Ravenswood Silver Mining Company; Edward was the mine manager; William owned the boarding house and store; and George ran the brickworks.
[1] Following favourable official assessments of the ore potential in King's freehold, a Melbourne syndicate bought into the Ravenswood Silver Mining Company and refloated it, under the same name, on the English market.
With over 30,000 tons of tailings in the dumps, the new company proposed an elaborate treatment plant to be housed in an all brick building on One Mile Creek, connected by an endless chain tramway to the mine, at a cost of £15,000.
[1] The mill was completed in 1889 and equipped by Sandycroft and Company, of Chester U.K., with three engines aggregating 54 h.p., Cornish boilers, piston jiggers, stone breakers, two pairs of rollers, two raff wheels and elevators, classifier, three sluices, six 4.9-metre (16 ft) Borleas round buddles, picking tables, three Frue vanners and a separator.
After World War 2, King's freehold and M.L.363, which included the neighbouring Great Extended Shaft, were taken over by Percy Kean Jnr., who decided to recommence operations.
steam engines, six Jordan and Cummins patent jiggers, a Black and Marsden stone breaker, winding and pumping gear, six revolving screens, two Linkenbach round buddles, classifier, elevators, picking tables, grizzly and spitzcasten.
However, apart from trial runs, the works never treated a single ton of ore for export and they were sold to the Mount Albion Silver Mining Company, operating at Montalbion near Irvinebank, and dismantled at the end of 1891.
[1] The surviving plant includes:[1] The site contains brick milling and machinery foundations located within a 50-metre (160 ft) square area on the east bank of One Mile Creek.
The formation of the tramway running east from the mill features a raised ramp with stone abutments to allow its passage under Birkby Street, Totley.
[1] Despite minimal structural evidence of the mill, other than machinery foundations of brick covering a 50-metre (160 ft) square area, the tramway formation running east from the mill site is still visible with raised embankments with stone abutments to allow its passage under the streets of Totley township.
[1] Despite minimal structural evidence of the mill, other than machinery foundations of brick covering a 50-metre (160 ft) square area, the tramway formation running east from the mill site is still visible with raised embankments with stone abutments to allow its passage under the streets of Totley township.
The plant was imported by the La Societe Francaise des Metaux Rares company in 1912 and re-located to the Louisa mine on the Palmer in 1915.
[1] The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history.