Burra, South Australia
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Burra () is a pastoral centre and historic tourist town in the mid-north of South Australia. It lies east of the Clare Valley in the northern Mount Lofty Ranges on the Burra creek. The town began as a single company mining township that, by 1851, was a set of townships ( company, private and government owned) collectively known as “The Burra” .Auhl I 1986, pp.1 The Burra mines supplied 5% of the world’s copper for 15 years .Auhl I 1986, pp.339, and the settlement, one of the largest in Australia at the time, has been credited ( along with the mines at Kapunda ) with saving the economy of the struggling new colony of South Australia. The Burra Burra copper mine was established in 1848 mining the copper deposit discovered in 1845. Miners and townspeople migrated to Burra primarily from Cornwall, Wales, Scotland and Germany. The mine first closed in 1877, briefly opened again early in the 20th century and for a last time from 1970-1981.
When the mine was exhausted and closed the population shrunk dramatically and the townships, for the next 100 years, supported pastoral and agricultural activities. Today the town continues as a centre for surrounding farming communities and, as one of the best preserved Victorian towns in Australia, a Historic tourist centre. .Auhl I 1980, pp.11
The town and mine are both well preserved with many original buildings, the water filled open cut mine, well preserved mining buildings and a pump engine house which today houses a museum. Several chimneys from the mining industry have survived and a tourist trail showcases the old Redruth Gaol, miners’ dugout cottages in the creek bank, a row of miner's cottages built in 1850 and other historic places.
Burra is located within the hundred of Kooringa a few kilometres inside Goyder's Line, near Burra, Baldina and Gum creeks.
Naming
The name applied to what is now the town of Burra, has changed over time. The Burra Burra copper mine was named after the Burra Burra creek that flows through the town. From at least 1851 the collection of townships near the mine became referred to as ‘’The Burra’’.Auhl I 1986, pp.101 The town of Burra was officially formed in 1940 by a notice in the South Australian Government Gazette with the consolidation of the mostly culturally-based townships of Redruth, Aberdeen, New Aberdeen, Hampton, Copperhouse, Kooringa, Llwchwr and Lostwithiel.The name Burra Burra has been asserted to have come from numerous sources. Most favoured is that it comes from the Hindustani for ‘great great’, used by Indians working for early pastoralist James Stein to refer to creek. The name could also have come from Stein’s home country of Scotland or a number of Aboriginal languages.www.burrahistory.info
Early History
Original inhabitants
The original inhabitants of the Burra area were the Ngadjuri Aboriginal people who’s first western contact was in 1839. Pastoralists grazed much of the Ngadjuri land from the 1840s and, although there was conflict, Ngadjuri people worked as shepherds and wool scourers, particularly once the area was emptied during the gold rushes of the 1850s. Their population was seriously depleted by introduced european diseases and they were reported to be extinct by 1878. Traces remain with rock art and burial sites in the area and some people able to claim Ngadjuri ancestry.Discovery of copper
On June 9 1845 William Streair bore samples of a rich copper ore into the office of Henry Ayers,secretary of the South Australian Mining Association (SAMA). Streair, a young shepard in the employ of local pastoralist James Stein, had walked the 90 miles from BurraAuhl I 1986, pp.23-24 as did Thomas Pickett, a shepard on a neighbouring property who made a further find. News of the copper this heralded was published on 21 June in Adelaide newspapers, and the site was soon named The Monster Mine. Auhl I 1986, pp.32-33Governor George Grey had amended land grant regulations forcing the hundred of Kooringa to be a rectangle of 20,000 acres placing the two copper finds at opposite ends.Burra Record 19.9.1934 Due to the twenty thousand pound price of the land it was divided in two, with each half sold to a different group and the division decided by lot . A group of wealthy capitalists (known as ‘’the nobs’’) purchased the southern half of the division and a group of shopkeepers, merchants and SAMA ( collectively known as ‘’the snobs’’) the northern half. Auhl I 1986, pp.34 The Burra Burra mine was established by the snobs in their northern selection, the princess royal mine by the nobs in their southern . In 1846, 347 acres just north of the division was sold to the Scottish Australian Investment Company for £5,550 where they established the Bon Accord mine.
Mining began on 29th September 1845 with the first gunpowder charge set off on the monster Burra Burra copper lode and by mid 1846 the Bon Accord Mining company had also commenced operations. Auhl I 1986, pp.75
Mining 1845 – 1877
Burra Burra or monster mine
The mines’ Adelaide operation was run, for it’s entire life, by Henry Ayers, secretary of SAMA.Auhl I 1986, pp.187 The investors had put up a total of £12,320 of which £10,000 was spent purchasing the land. The first dividend was paid on the 24th June 1847 and by 1st December 1847 the mine had returned total dividends of £49,280. Over the mines’ 32 year life, less than 100 shareholders received £826,586 in mining dividends. .Auhl I 1986, pp.89 All mining dividends stopped after the mine closed in 1877 with the mine area sold in 1902 and the last property of SAMA in Kooringa sold in 1914. A final dividend was paid on 5th may 1916 and SAMA was wound up and closed. .Auhl I 1986, pp.143Most of the copper was for sale to India as it was taking over a third of world copper supply in the mid 19th Century. Auhl I 1986, pp.165 Due to the lack of smelting in South Australia, copper ore was initially shipped to Cornwall. The company purchased a Cornish beam engine which was the first in Australia which when erected in 1848. Due to the uneconomic state of the mine, in 1868 a decision made to open cut the mine. .Auhl I 1986, pp.196-211 Mining ceased underground and open cut operations starting in 1870 although, over the remaining life of the mine, small underground operations extracted more ore that the expensive open cut. .Auhl I 1986, pp.87
Over the life of the mine, Henry Ayers jealously preserved shareholder profits by ruthlessly controlling wages and expenses. In October 1846 this caused the first strike, of masons and bricklayers, with the company refusing to pay more than 8 shillings per day. With declining copper prices (from £91 per ton in 1845 to £87 in 1848) the company continually sought to reduce wages. By 1848 the wages reached their lowest level, which precipitated the Burra miners strike, being the first industrial strike in South Australia and earliest workers strike of any consequence in Australia. The strike came and went numerous times, with miners not completely returning to work until January 1849.Auhl I 1986, pp.90-98
By April of 1848 the mine was employing 567 people and supporting a population of 1500 in the township of Kooringa.Auhl I 1986, pp.80 Employment at the mine peaked at 1208 in 1859 and declined continuously until the mines closure in 1877. In November 1877 most of the remaining disposable equipment and stores were sold off and mining by SAMA ceased. .Auhl I 1986, pp.89
Bon accord mine
The Bon Accord Mining company was formed on behalf of Scottish speculators, in the expectation that the Burra lode would extend under the properties boundary. No extension was found and, to recoup money, the townships of Aberdeen (1849) and New Aberdeen (1872) were formed on company land. Stoppage of pumping at the Burra Burra mine in 1877 caused a rise in the water level in the neighboring Bon accord mine forcing it to also close although it had not been economic for a considerable period. .Auhl I 1986, pp.432Princess royal mine
The Princess Royal Mine was never successful and in June 1859 the Princess Royal Mining Company closed it’s doors.Auhl I 1986, pp.341Pastoral activity
Sheparding had been common around Burra with flocks grazing from 1843, as early pastoral pioneers were granted grazing rights on unsurveyed land .Auhl I 1986, pp.405Over the life of the Burra mine, most food was brought in as there was no freehold offered by SAMA on the land and no adjoining hundreds were declared until 1860. Agriculture was delayed by the slow surveying of hundreds, as until these had been done there was no freehold or leashold land but only grazing rights. As Burra lies almost on Goyder’s 1865 line it is rated at the edge of marginal land for farming. After mining the town became a pastoral center, and South Australia’s main sheep trading centre until the mid 20th Century.Development of the town
During a visit, in October 1845, to Burra by Henry Ayers and the directors of SAMA the site of the township of Kooringa was chosen. George Strickland Kingston surveyed and laid out the township, completing it in April 1846, and named many of the streets after directors of SAMA. From the beginning the township was a company town, built at low cost and with insufficient housing, which forced many miners to dig makeshift homes.Auhl I 1986, pp.71-79In the census of 1851 over a third of the population were living along the creek and the Census compiler took time to note:There are no houses, the dwellings being excavated in the banks of the Burra creek.Auhl I 1986, pp.122Largely due to the company nature of the settlement, development was slow, with the first bank not opening until 1859 and the first town newspaper being printed in 1876. Until the National Bank established the first branch in Kooringa, most exchange was either in the form of company scrip or at shops operating as money exchanges. .Auhl I 1986, pp.90All towns, except Kooringa, were built outside the mining lease but were still close to the mine as it was at the northern edge of lease . The formation of the townships was forced by the refusal of SAMA to grant any freeholds within kooringa, so miners began moving into other townships from the end of 1849. During their early lives each of the townships largely had their own hotels, churches, post offices, schools, and shops and identity.Auhl I 1986, pp.245 In 1851 the gold rush near Bathurst, New South Wales emptied the town of many miners. Auhl I 1986, pp.133 Whole families, goverment officials and other townspeople left for the gold fields and by 1854 the town appeared largely deserted. Auhl I 1986, pp.232 The number of townships increased dramatically as a result of an 1858 proposal to extend a railway line from Gawler. When the railway failed to be built most of the new townships failed and, in 1876, the remaining townships formed the Coporation of Burra Auhl I 1986, pp.117-121
In september 1846 the townships had their first police presence with the movement of 4 constables from Julia Creek to the south into temporary accommodation provided by SAMA. .Auhl I 1986, pp.252 Permanent lockup cells and stables were completed in Redruth mid 1847. In September that year, William Lang was appointed resident Magistrate and coroner for the murray district and initially housed in company cottage in Kooringa. The first hotel was a temporary wooden structure erected at the entrance to the township of Kooringa in mid 1846, and the first permanent hotel was the Burra Hotel (opened 25th September 1847 ) built by William Paxton, a SAMA director and original owner of Ayers House. The Burra Hotel became the town’s first public hospital in 1878 and was demolished in 1968 . Auhl I 1986, pp.214.
Burra’s first parliamentary representative was George Strickland “Paddy” Kingston who was elected in 1851 to the first legislative council as member for Burra and Clare, and for the same area to the house of assembly in its first parliament of 1857. Auhl I 1986, pp.114
Piped water was supplied from 1884 from the flooded and abandoned Bon Accord mine with water reaching 100 houses by 1885. This was the primary source for Burra until 1966 when it was replaced with water piped from the Murray river. Auhl I 1986, pp.433 The Burra received it’s first supply of electricity on March 27th 1924 from the newly formed Burra electric supply company.’’The burra electric supply co ltd: Opening Invitation’’ inAuhl I 1980
Burras' population has declined from peak of 5,000 in 1851 to a present figure of approximately 1,200. The dramatic decrease at the end of mining inhibited expansion and helped preserve many of the original buildings and houses. Auhl I 1986, pp.116
The Townships
Redruth
Redruth was a government township formed in 1850 after being surveyed in 1849. It is named after Redruth in Cornwall and its streets are named after Cornish mining towns. The township was the site of all original government buildings (court, gaol and police station). The Courthouse was erected in 1857 .Auhl I 1986, pp.257 and the gaol, built in 1856, was the first country gaol in South Australia. From 1897 to 1922 the gaol was used as a Girl’s reformatory.Auhl I 1986, pp.250 SAMA delayed building in Redruth when they bought 77 of the 120 lots on offer at the initial land auction, paying almost 20 times the overall reserve price.Auhl I 1986, pp.120Kooringa
Kooringa was the first company township in Australia .Auhl I 1986, pp.116 and, until the closure of the mine, was maintained as a strictly company run town. The townships name is derived fron the Aboriginal word kuri-ngga meaing either in the circle or locality of the sheoak . During the life of the Burra Burra mine, the township was widely reported as shabby, rundown and poorly maintained with the inhabitants having little incentive to maintain their rented properties.Llychwr
Llychwr, sometimes spelled Llwchyr, was built by the Patent Copper Company (Later the English and Australian Copper Company) to avoid the need to ship all of the ore to Wales. The streets are named after street names in Llychwr, Wales and other nearby villages. In May 1848, the company had imported from Swansea the entire of a smelting works comprising men, materials, tools, staff and families Auhl I 1986, pp.163-168 and smelting was reported to be in operation by May 1849.Aberdeen and New Aberdeen
The Bon Accord mining company created Aberdeen and New Aberdeen, naming them after Aberdeen Scotland. Due to the lack of success in mining, the company land near the mine was subdivided in 1855 forming Aberdeen, with the company seeking to recoup some of their investment. Streets were named to honour directors of the Bon Accord Mining company and the retaining of mineral rights by the company prevented SAMA from acquiring the land as they had in Redruth.Auhl I 1986, pp.112 New Aberdeen was subdivided after arrival of the railway and most of the early buildings in the two townships were constructed in the three years following. .Auhl I 1986, pp.121Other townships
The townships of Copperhouse, Hampton and Nelson were not included in the 1940 proclamation forming the town of Burra, as they had become ghost towns. Other townships that either never succeeded or had been abandoned by 1940 were Princesstown, Lostwithiel, Westbury, Roachtown, Yarwood, Millertown, Warrapoota and Clonmel. .Auhl I 1986, pp.101Notable Events
- 1848, the Burra miners strike was the first strike in South Australia and the first industrial strike of significance in Australia.
- 1851, the Burra’s reported population of 5,000 made it the 7th largest town in Australia and the largest inland settlement. .Blainey G 1980, pp.119
- 1980, the movie Breaker Morant was filmed in the area with the Market Square featuring due to it’s preserved Victorian buildings.
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External links
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