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Moreton Bay History

Moreton Bay History

Category Archives: mining

Working at Dunwich (Noel Brown)

29 Saturday Aug 2020

Posted by historianludlow in Dunwich, mining, Moreton Bay, Stradbroke Island

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Dunwich, Mineral sand mining, Stradbroke Island

My father, Mark Brown

My grandfather, George Brown, was a descendant of Fernandez Gonzales, a ‘Manila man’ who Tom Welsby once described as ‘the Patriarch of Moreton Bay’. George married Granny Mubue, an Aborigine from the mainland, and their children included my father, Markwell “Mark” George Brown, and my five aunts Daisy Campbell, Tilly Martin, Ethel Close, Vera Perry, and Mabel Brown (she remained unmarried). Our family lived at the Two Mile, which as the name implies was a community situated two miles north of Dunwich. Mark Brown, my father, worked at the old people’s institution at Dunwich as an engineer. He looked after the gas and steam engines there.

Apart from fishing and oystering, the old people’s Institution was the only source of employment for the people of Stradbroke Island. So, when it closed down in about 1947, my father worked at the Lazaret (leprosarium) on Peel Island just across the water from Dunwich. He remained working there until the sand mining started up on Stradbroke Island. At this stage our family moved from the Two Mile to Dunwich. My father worked for the mining in the carpenters’ shop until he retired and went to live at Southport.

Noel Brown

I went to school in Dunwich and when I left, I worked with Bonty Dickson, one of the personalities of Stradbroke and who later became its first Councillor. I worked with him on his oyster leases, then started boat building with him. One of the things I remember about Bonty was that he rode a three-wheeled bike.

Bonty Dickson’s store at Dunwich (photo courtesy Ray Cowie)

When the sand mines started up, I worked on the dredge on Main Beach. The dredge was used to pump the sand mix into the separating towers where the heavy mineral sands were separated from ordinary sand by centrifugal force. Then I helped put through the ropeway from Main Beach to Dunwich, via the Blue Lake and the 18 Mile Swamp. This ropeway (wire) was to transport the mineral sand in buckets across Stradbroke Island to Dunwich from where it was taken by barge to Brisbane and thence overseas.

The company mining the mineral sands then was called Tazi, which was located at Tazitown on the 18-mile swamp. This is now called Con Rutile. Now (1996) there are two sand companies, one at Dunwich (Con [Consolidated] Rutile) and the other at Amity Point.

 (Editor: Consolidated Rutile was a fixed mining operation on North Stradbroke Island with a workforce of up to 150 men housed in accommodation centered at Dunwich. The mineral concentrates were barged to Meeandah near Brisbane airport for separation into heavy mineral components.)

D9 Bulldozers hitched up to move a section of the plant on N.Stradbroke c.1976 (Photo courtesy Felix Fries)

Noel Brown, Southport, 1996

(Extract from Peter Ludlow’s book ‘Moreton Bay People 2012’ (now out of print)

(Editor: Sand mining ceased on Stradbroke Island in 2019).

30 Things (There is more to mining than just coal)

21 Saturday Dec 2019

Posted by historianludlow in coal, mining

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Tags

coal, mining

At a recent meeting of our Probus Club of Toondah, our guest speaker was Gavin Becker, a retired metallurgist, who spoke on ‘The Minerals Council of Australia’s 30 Things’. You can download the PDF slide show of his presentation by clicking here:

http://minerals.org.au/sites/default/files/30%20Things.pdf

It’s worth downloading this presentation and reviewing each use of minerals. I like the extra information presented in small print. For example: Australia gave the world WiFi:

WiFi was developed in the radiophysics lab at CSIRO in the 1990s. The technology was a revolution in mobile computing and is today estimated to be in more than five billion electronic devices. For its efforts, CSIRO has earned more than $430 million through licensing agreements with tech companies since 1996.

Gavin still works in the mineral processing area, specializing in base and precious metals. He is keen to offer the other side of mining to that which the media are currently exploiting with the Extinction Rebellion crusades. He abhors politicians short term thinking that plans only for one election. When sand mining stops on Stradbroke Island, it is estimated that there will be $130 million loss to my local area in the Redlands. 

30 Things

Everything we consume is either grown or mined.

More recently, there were demonstrations in Melbourne outside an international conference on mining. Personally, I think it’s a mistake to lump coal mining in in the same category as that of base and precious metals, when it’s really just coal mining that we need to be cutting back on. As Gavin’s talk demonstrated, there’s much more to mining than just coal.

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  • Recollections on Redland Bay’s Water Airport by Ernie Tickner
  • From a Farm Beside the Sea with Pam Tickner – Part 3

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historianludlow on From a Farm Beside the Sea wit…
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Categories

  • 1960s scene
  • Aborigines
  • ACGS
  • Aircraft
  • Amity
  • Art
  • Avebury
  • Bancroft
  • Bath
  • Bee Gees
  • bees
  • Bernard Elsey
  • Bird Island
  • Bishop Island
  • boats
  • Bradford on Avon
  • Bribie Island
  • Brisbane
  • Bulimba
  • bushfires
  • Caboolture
  • cataracts
  • Christmas
  • Churchie
  • Cilento
  • Cleveland
  • coal
  • Coins
  • coral dredging
  • Covid 19
  • Cowan Cowan
  • Cribb Island
  • CSIRO
  • Cudgera
  • CyArk
  • Deception Bay
  • dreams, hallucinogens
  • dredges
  • Dromagh
  • Drones
  • duelling
  • Dunwich
  • Electronics
  • Faith
  • Fantome Island
  • film
  • fishing
  • Flying Boats
  • football
  • Frank Boyce
  • George Symons Suits
  • Germany
  • Glengariff
  • Google Earth
  • Gustav Dux
  • Gutter Bar
  • Hastings Point
  • Heide Museum of Modern Art
  • Historic buildings
  • History
  • Hobart
  • Hogmanay
  • Hong Kong
  • Ian Fairweather
  • Immigration
  • indigenous
  • inebriates
  • Ireland
  • Jack The Ripper
  • Japan
  • jetties
  • jigsaw
  • John Oxley
  • Karl Marx
  • Kastellorizo
  • Kleinschmidt
  • Kooringal
  • Leichhardt
  • Leprosy
  • Literature
  • London
  • Lyne Marshall
  • Mallalieu
  • mandala
  • Maryborough
  • Matthew Flinders
  • Memories
  • Metropol Hotel
  • mining
  • Missionary
  • Mona Mona Aboriginal Mission
  • Moreton Bay
  • Moreton Island
  • Moscow
  • Mr Magoo
  • Mud Island
  • Museums
  • music
  • National Geographic Magazine
  • New Year
  • Nundah
  • oysters
  • Pam and Ernie Tickner
  • Paris
  • Pasternak
  • Pebble Beach
  • Peel Island
  • Petrie
  • Phillip Island
  • Photography
  • Podcasts
  • Politics
  • Port of Brisbane
  • pyjama parties
  • quarantine
  • Raby Bay
  • Redcliffe
  • Redevelopment
  • Redland Bay
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  • Richmal Crompton
  • Robert Burns
  • Rotary
  • Royal Flying Doctor Service
  • RQYS
  • Russell Island
  • Russia
  • science
  • Scotland
  • sharing
  • sharks
  • ships
  • shore birds
  • Siberia
  • soccer
  • Spanish Galleon
  • St Helena Island Prison
  • Stanthorpe
  • Stourhead
  • Stradbroke Island
  • Submarines
  • sugar cane
  • Surfers Paradise
  • Tallegalla
  • Tangalooma
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame
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  • Toulkerri
  • Towles
  • travel
  • TV
  • Uncategorized
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  • Walter Porriott
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  • Whepstead Manor
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