Great Northern Mine is a heritage-listed mine off Jacks Road, Herberton, Tablelands Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1880 to 1940s. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
History
The Great Northern tin lode was discovered in 1879 and four prospectors, William Jack, William Ronald Joss, John Newell and Thomas Brandon, who had been working in the Tinaroo and Wild River area for some time applied on 12 April 1880 at Thornborough for a sixty-acre Mineral Freehold.
The Great Northern lode was on the eastern side of the Wild River and they traced the three feet wide lode for two miles up the ridges. They located two to three hundred weights of rich tin and, local legend has it, they smelted it crudely on site in a tree stump using their felt hats as bellows. Jack and Newell communicated their find to John Moffat in Stanthorpe who agreed to invest in a battery and smelter in the newly named Herberton area. By August 1880 there were 70 miners at work at Herberton.
On 18 September 1880 the Great Northern mine was christened. John Moffat, Anthony Linedale and George Seaman from Stanthorpe and Tent Hill arrived in Herberton in mid October 1880. Moffat's milling experience enabled him to secure leases and determine the location of tin batteries. Local miners hailed his technical knowledge as necessary for the development of the field.
Moffat's men prepared foundations for their Great Northern battery in November 1880. After Samuel Denny's experiments at tin smelting on behalf of other miners failed, Moffat enlisted his support for the Great Northern venture. Moffat's machinery arrived in Herberton in February 1881. The Great Northern ten head stamp battery had a trial crushing in early May 1881. Moffat formed the Herberton Tin Company to manage the Great Northern battery and all his mining interests including the Great Northern mine, on behalf of his Glen Smelting Company in Tent Hill, New South Wales.
In the 1800s the Great Northern yielded a steady income for the Moffat's Glen Smelting Company. Up to 1885 the mine averaged a phenomenal 30%. Moffat's manager, William Bonar, who had previously worked on the Palmer Goldfield, was able to accurately assess the direction of the lode and patterns and distributions to determine where it might next appear as benches and steps in the shaft, a contrasting policy to the reckless devastation of many lodes on Herberton hill. Bonar worked on two lodes the Gully and the Eastern. The two shafts were timbered in 1885 and a "Eclipse" rock drilling plant was acquired in 1887. The assays dropped in 1885 but at 8.6% the Great Northern was still very profitable.
Moffat sought to sell the Great Northern mine and battery several times during the late 1880s and early 1890s. The manager, Bonar, and Herberton storekeeper and mining investor, John Newell, were opposed to southern management taking over. When the finances of the Glen Smelting Company were rationalised into the Irvinebank Mining Company (private) in 1889-90 the Herberton Tin Company was not sold into any public company. Moffat tried again in 1892 to sell the Great Northern mine and mill to Sydney interests but without success. The mine closed down in 1893, except for some work done by tributers.
Herberton and the Great Northern had suffered from three serious problems in its development: reckless opening of many lodes in the early years, the difficulty in gaining exemptions to install machinery, and the expectation that the Great Northern would continue to perform as a bonanza. There were also problems right up to World War I that there was theft of rich ore and tampering with assays.
The Great Northern contributed significantly to John Moffat's companies for decades. Over 30 years it produced of tin valued at at an average assay of 14%. The mill ceased for a time in 1895. Moffat succeeded in floating the Great Northern in 1901 but the mill and mine remained idle until 1902. The shaft was sunk to in the next four years. The following years of operation the assay was only 3.5% and the mill was spectacularly less successful than the first fifteen years. Controversy arose over management of the three shafts, Froghole, Gully and Great Northern. Heavy water also entered the Gully shaft. Further sinking was postponed pending the erection of a headframe in 1909. However the mill, technologically more modern than the Loudoun at Irvinebank and christened on 24 August 1904, was a boon for miners. Nevertheless, the problem over assays and theft continued.