Consolidated Zinc was an Australian

mining Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...

company from 1905 to 1962.

History

The company's initial operations focused on extracting

zinc Zinc is a chemical element with the symbol Zn and atomic number 30. Zinc is a slightly brittle metal at room temperature and has a shiny-greyish appearance when oxidation is removed. It is the first element in group 12 (IIB) of the periodi ...

from

mine tailings In mining, tailings are the materials left over after the process of separating the valuable fraction from the uneconomic fraction (gangue) of an ore. Tailings are different to overburden, which is the waste rock or other material that overl ...

of the Broken Hill Ore Deposit at Broken Hill, New South Wales, Australia. The company was founded in

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

on 9 September 1905 as the Zinc Corporation Limited, to exploit residual zinc concentrations with an estimated value of $12 million in the 6 million tons of mine tailings deposited from mining activities over the previous 20 years. Key figures involved in the effort included

William Baillieu William Lawrence Baillieu (29 April 1859 – 6 February 1936) was an Australian financier and politician. He was a successful businessman, having developed significant business interests from his relatively humble beginnings. He associated with m ...

and William Sydney Robinson. Also involved was future U.S. president, but then a mining engineer working for Bewick, Moreing and Company,

Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...

, who inspected the tailing dumps in the group's investigations prior to formation of the company. Other investors in the new company were Clark & Robinson (William Clark, Lionel Robinson and Company), and Arthur Terrell. They established concentrating mills at Broken Hill in 1905 and 1910, and in 1906 an associated sulphuric acid manufacturing plant whose first manager was (later Sir) H. W. Gepp. In 1911 they expanded into primary mining activities with the purchase of Broken Hill South Blocks Ltd (colloquially "South Blocks"), constructing underground mines and mining for zinc,

lead Lead is a chemical element with the symbol Pb (from the Latin ) and atomic number 82. It is a heavy metal that is denser than most common materials. Lead is soft and malleable, and also has a relatively low melting point. When freshly cu ...

silver Silver is a chemical element with the symbol Ag (from the Latin ', derived from the Proto-Indo-European ''h₂erǵ'': "shiny" or "white") and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it exhibits the highest electrical ...

and

gold Gold is a chemical element with the symbol Au (from la, aurum) and atomic number 79. This makes it one of the higher atomic number elements that occur naturally. It is a bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile me ...

in the Broken Hill area. In 1949, Zinc Corporation merged with the Imperial Smelting Corporation to become Consolidated Zinc. In 1953, Haddon King became chief geologist. Over time, the company built up substantial financial resources but failed to develop suitable new mining projects. This led to a merger in 1962 with the Rio Tinto Company, a company who found itself in a complementary position of having substantial development opportunities but not enough financial resources with which to pursue them. The resulting company, known as The Rio Tinto – Zinc Corporation (RTZ), and its main subsidiary, Conzinc Riotinto of Australia (CRA), would eventually become today's Rio Tinto Group.

References

Companies formerly listed on the Australian Securities Exchange Defunct mining companies of Australia Former Rio Tinto (corporation) subsidiaries Zinc smelters Metal companies of Australia Metallurgical industry of Australia Manufacturing plants in Australia {{Australia-company-stub