Cole's Shaft (fmr)

Statement of Significance

The place is the earliest mine in the State and many early colonists including Secretary Sholl, and other principals, Shenton, Leake and Marmion were in the committee
The place is a benchmark site as the first mining shaft to be sunk in Western Australia. The shaft and surroundings have the potential to yield information through archaeological excavation to yield information regarding early mining practices.
The place is representative of a number of shafts put down in the Darling Range over ensuing years in search of lead, copper, silver and gold.

Physical Description

Cole’’s Shaft constitutes a vertical shaft, approximately 10 metres deep, located amongst scrub and trees near the top of Bedfordale Hill, not far from the northwest boundary of the lot. The shaft is characterised by a mullock heap of broken quartz and granite, which has been covered with a galvanised metal grille and viewing platform. The platform is entirely trafficable, with a trapdoor and ladder providing limited access to the bottom of the shaft, and a safety rail along the bank and above the shaft.

History

Cole’’s Shaft, first sunk in 1846-7, is a vertical mineshaft about 10 metres in depth on the western face of Bedfordale Hill in the Darling Range. In August 1846, a public meeting was held in Perth, and a committee appointed to organize the formation of a company to systematically investigate the mineral resources of the colony. In October 1846, the prospecting efforts of Thomas Gilman and Samuel Duffield were successful, the pair having discovered promising lead deposits in the Darling Range, a short distance south of Neerigen Brook on land owned by John Adams and Thomas Middleton.
After news broke of the discovery of a coal seam on the Irwin River located during explorations in 1846 by the Gregory brothers, a further 1,000 shares in the W.A. Mining Co. were taken up, allowing it to commence operations in earnest. The committee began negotiations for the importation of mining expertise from South Australia, eventually engaging a qualified mineralogist, Dr Ferdinand von Sommer, and a mine foreman named Thomas, to proceed to Western Australia for a six-month term. At the end of November 1846, two members of the W.A. Mining Co. accompanied Gilman and Duffield to their find. The subsequent report of this was so encouraging that the company paid the prospectors a £20 reward and made arrangements with the relevant landowners to enable them to commence mining operations immediately.
The negotiations to acquire the land surrounding the find resulted in the purchase of 50 acres of Canning Location 31 from Adams and Middleton for £62-10-0. Additional mineral discovery to the south of the area resulted in the purchase from the government, for £159-0-0, of Canning Location 24, 160 acres adjoining the south boundary of the 50-acre block. J.W. Gregory superintended the initial mining work from 4 December 1846 until the arrival of Dr von Sommer, and miners sent from Perth were engaged at 6 shillings per day, with rations provided. The operation started on the lead lode was known as the ‘‘Kelmscott Mine’’ or ‘‘Cole’’s Shaft’’, after Henry Laroche Cole, one of the shareholders of the mining company.
On 26 December 1846, the Perth Gazette announced that copper had been found amongst the lead ore, while the deepening of Cole’’s Shaft was temporarily abandoned in favour of putting down another shaft nearby. Under the direction of Thomas, this was excavated to a depth of about 14 metres, with few mineral indications in the quartz vein being followed. Various other costeens and trenches were opened out, before operations resumed in Cole’’s Shaft, which eventually reached a depth of about 9 metres, with encouraging prospects of improving yields.
After the expiry of Thomas and von Sommer’’s contracts with the WA Mining Co., the work at Cole’’s Shaft was carried on under the management of Edward Forbes. Twelve months after the formation of the company, Forbes reported that, although delays had been experienced due to winter rains filling the shaft, the mineral indicators were improving. By December 1847, Cole’’s Shaft was 32 feet (9.7 metres) deep, and was then squared, to enable the vein to be followed in its underlay. Although another call for funds was made upon shareholders, interest in further deepening Cole’’s Shaft appears to have waned for a time thereafter, while the company pursued other mineral discoveries.
Joseph Batt was contracted to extend the shaft in 1849, and is reported to have sunk it a further 12 feet (3.66 metres) without encouraging results. In 1854, the local press suggested that the WA Mining Co. was considering deepening ‘‘Forbes’’ shaft’’ (Cole’’s Shaft) near Kelmscott, because assays of the quartz had revealed auriferous properties. Whether or not any further work was carried out at the site is unknown. The WA Mining Co. was finally wound up in 1906, after it had been 60 years in unregistered existence.
Though there are claims that this former silver/lead mine was WA’’s first mining venture in the early 1840s, evidence suggests that mining did not begin in earnest until 1869 as part of a series of other mining leases along this general area of the scarp. The mine was worked spasmodically until about 1908-09, when the main shaft was over 86 feet deep. Buildings and equipment were removed a few years later and in 1976 the mine-shafts were filled in. The area around Cole’’s Shaft remained unworked for many years. In 1999, it was subdivided into residential lots and later sold.

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