Bewick Moreing in Western Australian Gold Mining 1897-1904: Management Policies & Goldfields Responses

Abstract

The British mining engineering firm of Bewick Moreing and Company Ltd was, by 1904, the most significant single company in the Western Australian gold mining industry. At the height of its activities in June 1904, the company managed twenty mines which accounted for 37% of the gold produced and employed nearly 20% of the state's goldminers. Its success was accompanied by widespread unpopularity on the goldfields among such diverse groups as miners, goldfields merchants and the managers of independent mines. These groups seldom united in opposition to Bewick Moreing being frequently in conflict with one another. However, their combined resentments and protests reached a climax in 1904 which was also the watershed of Bewick Moreing's influence over the Western Australian gold mining industry. Bewick Moreing and Company Limited was formed in England in the 1880s to provide international mining and civil engineering consultancy services.1 Its first recorded involvement in a Western Australian mining venture was in 1893 when it was appointed consultant to a newly formed British company, West Australian Goldfields Limited.2 Subsequently Bewick Moreing was very active in the stock marker boom in Western Australian gold mining companies in London during 1895 and 1896. By mid 1897 the company had held the position of consulting engineer for sixty-four such companies most of which remained operational (at least on paper) and several of which held leases on which important long term mines were developed.3 By mid 1897, as the promotional boom subsided, profits had to be made not merely from promoting new mines but by operating them as efficient gold producers. Increasingly, therefore, Bewick Moreing became involved as the manager of mines which it had been instrumental in forming.