Early days of Cadia unearthed: The people behind the first wave of mining

However, 160 years ago, copper was all the rage at Cadia where there was a village including a store, school, butcher, bakery, pub and even a tennis court.

The Canoblas Mining Company was active at Little Cadia region in the 1850s. The name of the company was spelt as a variation on the name of Mount Canobolas.

In 1859, the trustees were: William Tom from the Cornish settlement, which became Byng near Lucknow. He was also involved in the discovery of payable gold in NSW in 1851.

Other investors in the company were: George Hawke, Richard Lane a farmer from the cornish settlement, Edward Nicholls, of Sydney who was previously a storekeeper in Orange, James Lane, tallow chandler Thomas Geake Lane of Orange, Orange storekeeper John Peisley, and Cadia miner John Johns.

It was the earliest indication of Cornish involvement in copper mining of the Cadiangullong Valley, although the Cornish went on to have a much greater influence and involvement in the mines at Cadia itself.

The Canoblas Mining Company ceased operations between December 1861 and 1865.

The Scottish Australian Mining Company took over and revived mining in the 1860s and along with the Cadiangullong Consolidated Copper Company established a private township.

The first birth was of John Jones, son of Welsh smelterman William and Gwen Jones on October 12, 1863.

Henry Bonnar became the first teacher when a school was built, Methodists held services as early as 1861 and established a chapel in 1868.

At that time, mines were opened on either side of Cadiangullong Creek, which flows through the valley into the Belubula River. Cadia developed on its eastern bank, near what became the main crossing of the creek.

At that time the Cornish were the acknowledged experts in deep mining for both tin and copper however, they had been forced to send their copper ores to South Wales, where abundant coal seams provided the necessary fuel for the smelters.

Therefore, the Welsh developed a tightly held expertise in smelting from the 1580s onwards although the Cornish tried to circumvent the high costs charged by the Welsh and gain the expertise for themselves.

A product of this long-standing rivalry between the Cornish and Welsh was Cadia's first mine manager and one of its founding members John Penrose Christoe who had been an adviser to the Scottish Australian Mining Company.

Mr Christoe was born in Swansea, South Wales on 26 April 1830 to a family with a long mining association in Cornwall.

His grandparents were James Christoe who was born in Redruth Cornall in 1766, and Sarah Penrose.

Their son and his father, William Christoe, was born in Cornwall in 1792 and became an assay master at Swansea, South Wales, and married Eliza Madge in Swansea in 1819.

John Penrose Christoe was their third son, born before the family returned to Truro in Cornwall by 1832.

However, he came to Australia to work at the Kapunda Copper Mines in South Australia in about 1850.

While at Kapunda he married Dorothea Smyth Blood at Kapunda and returned with her to Wales.

In 1858 he travelled with his wife and three eldest children to NSW, with son Neptune born on the ship in 1858.

He became the mining and smelting manager at the Carangara Copper Mine at Byng, the Cornish Settlement.

Mr Christoe advised The Scottish Australian Mining Company colonial manager Robert Morehead on the prospects of the Good Hope Mine, near Yass, in 1859 and also assisted in evaluating the resources at Cadia.

Mr Morehead had praised the abilities of Mr Christoe to the company directors and urged his appointment writing, "Mr Christoe can proceed to erect furnaces, and to carry on smelting, with the confidence that is engendered by his having already done all this, with perfect success, in the neighbourhood, his local expertise, therefore, will enable him to proceed with an economy and efficiency that no other metallurgist could bring to bear".

On 15 July 1861 the Scottish Australian Mining Company took out a 21 year lease for mining purposes on three portions of land at Cadia.

The Scottish-Australian Mining Company started operations at the Oaky Creek Copper Mine at East Cadia, also known as the Cadiangullong Copper Mine, almost immediately.

Mr Christoe, also referred to as Captain Christoe, was placed in charge of the work, assisted by Captain Johns, who had been a member of the Canoblas Mining Company at Little Cadia.

By 1861 Mr Christoe was employed at Cadia as mine manager and smelterman.

However, he had been in contact with Cornish miner Josiah Holman who was farming in New Zealand.

The two men knew each other through Mr Chrisoe's brother, William Henry Christoe, who was an assay master, based in Truro, Cornwall. Mr Holman wrote to Mr Christoe to seek any opportunities and Mr Christoe wrote in reply in 1862.

Mr Holman was experienced in deep mining in Cornwall so he was brought over to Cadia as mine manager allowing Mr Christoe to focus on his smelting expertise.

By May 1863, the road to the mines had been surveyed and marked out by surveyor Edward Combes, though the mining company itself had expended funding on road making by December 1861.

By November 1861, 200 tons of highly productive ore has been raised at East Cadia, Cadiangullong Mine.

On December 12, 1861, the Western Examiner newspaper of Orange noted that a smelter was being erected.

Through his mining connections Mr Christoe brought several people to Cadia including his father-in-law Dr Matthew Henry Smyth Blood, Esqire MD and JP.

Dr Smyth Blood was born in Ireland in 1806 and married his wife Marianne in County Clare Ireland in 1833.

Several children were born in Ireland, before the family emigrated to South Australia in 1847 and Dr Smyth Blood became a respected citizen of Kapunda in South Australia, a Justice of the Peace and later a major of the town council. He was also the medical superintendent of the Kapunda Copper Mine.

Dr Smyth Blood moved to Cadia with his family and became the "medical man" for the miners at Cadia, as recorded in Bailliere's New South Wales Gazetteer in 1866.

His son, William Smyth Blood, born 1839 and died 1905, became a storekeeper at Cadia in 1863 and remained at Cadia for many years. He married Emma Louise, daughter of Josiah Holman and some descendants remained in the region.

Mr Christoe, Mr Holman and Mr William Smyth Blood became the leading community members at Cadia.

They were the founding board members of the school board, appointed in 1867.

They were prominent in preparing not only the application for a school in 1863, but also several other petitions, one for a post office in 1863 and another for a common around the mine in 1866.

Mr Christoe was appointed the first postmaster at Cadia by July 1864.

However it was decided it would be more appropriate that the post office should be located at the Cadiangullong Store, where Stepney Alured Clarke had operated an unofficial mail service since 1861.

He applied to be appointed postmaster and was appointed on September 1, 1864.

Mr Christoe permanently left the district in 1867 one year before the first phase of copper mining ended at Cadia.

He had taken up the position of smelter manager and assayer at the Peak Downs Copper Mine in Queensland.

However, it's believed he also established a smelting works in Newcastle about 1869 at New Lambton and managed the smelter works at Burwood Beach, on the southern side of Merewether hill. As a result it's understood Christo Road at Waratah is named after him.

He remained in Queensland. His wife Dorothea died on May 24, 1887 in Queensland and he remarried Elizabeth Edith Oakey in Queensland in July 1888.

However, his Queensland mining interests failed and in 1881 he declared bankruptcy.

Mr Christoe died at his home in Mackay, Queensland in 1918 at the age of 88.

Dr Smyth Blood and his wife also left the area and returned to Kapunda where he became mayor, welcomed the Duke of Edinburgh in 1867. He and his wife celebrated their 50^th wedding anniversary only weeks before his sudden death in March 1883.

Although there was a large Cornish mining population at Cadia in the early days it was unlike other mines in South Australia and had people from other backgrounds.

At those South Australian mines such as Kapunda, Burra or Moonta-Wallaroo, the Cornish and Welsh communities predominated to the exclusion of others.

However, Cadia also drew from those returning from the goldfields or other migrants.

In 1863 the Scottish Australian Mining Company sponsored migrants for the specialist task of smelting, including Thomas Hussey, William Williams and Lewis Lloyd.

Lewis Lloyd was born in Wales in 1842 and trained as a smelter at Caermathen, and some sources have claimed he was unable to speak English when he arrived and worked for a few years at Cadia.

He went on to open Lloyd's Copper Mine at Burraga and had several other copper mining interests, also serving as a Member of Parliament.

Thomas Hussey remained at Cadia and became chief smelter to the Cadia Copper Mining Co and replaced Mr Christoe on the School Board.

Other smelters at Cadia in the 1860s included William Jones, born in Wales in 1835, Joseph Grey or Gray, born in England in 1838, and Daniel Magee, born in Ireland in 1842.

It was not only the company that sponsored migrants, but also other miners and their families. Sponsored immigrants at Cadia included Robert Northey and his family, Edward Miner and John Bice. Cadia residents who sponsored the passage of others included Eynon Deer, William Selwood and Walter Trathen.

The first phase of copper mining at Cadia ended in 1868, resuming between 1882 and 1898 at 'Iron Duke,' a hill also known as 'Big Cadia'.

With the closure of the mine, a sale notice, appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald on May 16, 1868.

The article described the housing facilities as: "One manager's house, and a large number of miners' houses... Besides which there are two hotels, sundry store-keepers' houses, shops, and post-office on the property, and belonging to the proprietors."

Mr Holman's report of 1868 also described the public school: "Builtings - These comprise a manager's house 30 by 60 feet, upwards of 60 huts suitable for officers and workpeople's residences, a few of the latter built of slabs with shingled roofs, the remainder of slabs and bark roofs, two hotels and three stores, chiefly the property of the company; also a public school standing on an acre of land belonging to the government, and a chapel; the foregoing forming the building of an irregular township."

The former Cadia village no longer exists and has been consumed by modern mining. The graves from the town's cemetery were exhumed and re-buried elsewhere.