Historic Hydroelectric Schemes in New England, NSW

Introduction

THe New England region of northern New South Wales (NSW) has an interesting history of hydroelectric generation dating back to the late 1880s. As I’ve noted in this overview of the earliest examples in the Australian colonies, what appears to be the first installation in NSW commenced operation at the Mount Sheba gold mine at Nundle in late 1889 (see the map above).¹ Like its contemporaries, the Mount Sheba plant was virtually experimental in conception and could only generate a relatively small amount of direct current for mine lighting purposes. However, in 1894 the first commercially-orientated hydroelectric plant in Australia began operation at the Gara River, a tributary of the Macleay River about half way between Armidale and Hillgrove (see map).² While its reported output of about 635 kW was also small by modern standards, the Gara power station was a much larger and more expensive undertaking than previous Australian plants and was designed to power both mining machinery and town/domestic lighting at Hillgrove, then the main gold and antimony producing district in NSW.³ Bedevilled by drought and severely damaged by successive floods in 1900–01, the Gara River installation rarely operated as intended; however, it did supply power for lighting at Hillgrove until about 1918.

Some of the Gara scheme’s hydraulic design and construction features were shared by a second hydroelectric plant built solely for mine power purposes in 1906–07 on the Styx River, another tributary of the Upper Macleay about 30 km east of Hillgrove (again, see map). An overview of these early attempts at implementing hydroelectric technology in rural Australia follows. The essay focuses on the Gara plant due to its historical significance at the national level; however, some key similarities and differences between the two schemes briefly are discussed. While relatively little primary source documentation appears to survive in relation to the Styx plant, some historic images of both installations are held at the University of New England Archives and Regional Heritage Centre at Armidale and most of these are included in the gallery below. Before concluding, some later plans and regional hydroelectric power stations are noted (including film of the construction and opening of the Oaky River Power Station [1956]).

Hillgrove

Hillgrove is situated on the edge of the New England Tablelands adjacent Bakers Creek Gorge, another tributary of the Upper Macleay River. Traditionally lands of the Anaiwan people, Bakers Creek watered the Hillgrove Run which, like neighbouring Gara, was occupied by the British for pastoral purposes in the mid-to-late 1830s.⁴ An early squatter upon both runs was Captain Maurice O’Connell (1812–79), son of the British Army’s Commander in New South Wales, Major-General Maurice O’Connell; subsequently, the property was controlled for many years by Richard Hargrave.⁵ In 1839, the state established a Crown Land Commissioner’s Camp at what became Armidale, now the largest town on the New England (or Northern) Tablelands.⁶ Antimony and gold mining began in earnest at Hillgrove in the early 1880s and, spurred by substantial investment from colonial and London syndicates,⁷ large-scale production ensued from the late 1880s.⁸ By 1890, Hillgrove and West Hillgrove, a smaller town situated on the opposite side of the gorge, were generating significant wealth that also spurred Armidale’s late nineteenth-century development. In fact, by the turn of the century, Hillgrove’s population of 3,500 briefly rivalled Armidale, although this status proved relatively short lived.⁹

While late-Victorian Armidale busily was shedding its rough frontier origins, Hillgrove grew in a chaotic and unregulated fashion. Mining companies took little practical interest in civic development and the industry’s thirst for fuel and water denuded local timber and fostered unsanitary living conditions (child mortality notably was high).¹⁰ From the early years of the twentieth century, moreover, Hillgrove’s deep lead mines went into steady decline due to ore price fluctuations, difficulties separating and processing gold from antimony and comparatively high operating costs.¹¹ The gorge environment meant that operating costs had always been a major concern for mine managements and both electric power plants under examination derived from an ongoing search for cheap power. In 1895, it was claimed that the Gara plant would reduce fuel costs by 40 per cent.¹²

Miners pictured on a large stope in the Eleanora mine, Hillgrove. — A Joseph Check photograph of men underground at the Eleanora mine, Hillgrove, 1908. Source: UNERA.

While undoubtedly innovative, the Gara installation did not solve this conundrum and, by 1921, company mining had ceased altogether at Hillgrove.¹³ Little economic diversification had occurred either and the town’s population dropped to just 400 or so;¹⁴ newspapers noted the removal of many houses to Armidale, leaving behind little more than a ‘ghastly array of chimneys’.¹⁵ While large-scale mining revived during the resources boom of recent decades, Hillgrove is now an even smaller community with a local area population of about 200.¹⁶ West Hillgrove, now known as Metz, largely is farmland—just a few modern houses remain.

The Eleanora mine, 1906. Source: State Archives of NSW. Situated on the Tableland immediately adjacent Hillgrove, this was powered by the Styx scheme from 1907 to about 1915 (and has been redeveloped in recent decades).

The Pioneering Gara River Installation (1894)

The earliest proposal to power Hillgrove’s mines by hydroelectric means seems to have been made in 1890 by Alexander Riddel, the former missionary, labour advocate and pioneer Broken Hill newspaper proprietor.¹⁷ Two years later, a parliamentary select committee investigated competing proposals utilising Bakers Creek and the Gara River respectively.¹⁸ In March 1893, enabling legislation for the Hillgrove and Armidale Water-power Electric Company’s innovative Gara River plans was passed.¹⁹ Electrical engineering was supervised by project consultant Richard Threlfall (1861–1932), a young and energetic Professor of Physics at the University of Sydney, while hydraulic infrastructure was designed by Walter Harcourt Palmer (1862–1915), the main proponent of the scheme.²⁰ Palmer was something of a hydroelectric entrepreneur and, concurrently, was involved in the construction of another mining-orientated plant on the Heemskirk River, near Zeehan in western Tasmania, which was beset by difficulties and abandoned.²¹ Palmer and associates also had plans for an unprecedented (7 MW) hydroelectric scheme on the Colo and Grose Rivers north west of Sydney which aroused considerable political opposition due to contention over potential water rights monopolies and, likewise, never eventuated.²²

These were visionary schemes in an Australian context. Even the Gara River plant’s output was quite substantial in an international context at the time of its first operation in 1894. However, much larger and more technologically sophisticated hydroelectric power stations utilising high voltage alternating current (AC) transmission soon began operation in the United States and Europe (the Adams Power Plant at Niagara Falls, New York [1895], probably being the best known example).²³ In many ways, the Gara scheme can be viewed as a transitional installation that had much bolder aims than the earliest low output direct current (DC) lighting schemes of the 1880s but also significant limitations in design and execution: its hydraulic engineering plainly was inadequate—even after an expensive reconstruction was undertaken in 1899–1900 (see below). In an Australian context, the Gara plant can also be compared to Launceston’s municipal street lighting plant built on the South Esk River at Duck Reach. This began operation in late 1895 with a smaller rated output (c. 360 kW, enlarged to 560 kW in 1898); however, the Duck Reach power station featured both DC and AC generation, was significantly enlarged and refined in the latter capacity over time, and proved much more fit for purpose (notwithstanding the destruction by flooding of the original power house in April 1929).²⁴

Duck Reach Power Station, South Esk River, Launceston, c. 1900. Source: Museums Victoria.

As noted earlier, the primary rationale for hydroelectric generation at Hillgrove was the provision of cheaper power for mining machinery.²⁵ Coal wasn’t mined on the Tablelands, local timber supplies were being exhausted and miners, timber, ore and machinery had to be transported up and down the 450-metre Bakers Creek Gorge via steep cable tramways (several were built over the years; initially, pack horses were used).²⁶ The initial Gara River installation reportedly cost about £25,000 to build and featured a timber flume about 2.5 km in length.²⁷ Originally, water was collected at a concrete weir built near Blue Hole, a local recreation spot, and carried by the flume to a steeply falling penstock feeding the power station situated downstream of Gara Falls. A corrugated metal shed with no architectural pretensions (see gallery below), the Gara power station was equipped with Pelton wheels that belt-drove five Crompton dynamos: two 50 horse power [37 kW] generators were for lighting at Hillgrove while three 250 horse power [186 kW] generators were installed for mine power.²⁸

Sunlight Mine, 1906. Note the steep tramway, typical of mines situated in Bakers Creek Gorge. Source: State Archives, NSW.

Prior to the 1890s, the practical limitations of relatively low voltage current transmission had held back the development of electrical generation; the Gara power station’s location about eight km south west of West Hillgrove (rather than the much closer Bakers Creek) meant that transmission losses remained a significant design issue for Richard Threlfall.²⁹ A protégé of the eminent Cambridge physicist J.J. Thomson, Threlfall had expertise in the burgeoning science of electrical generation and was well aware of developments internationally in high voltage AC transmission (polyphase AC distribution first was practically demonstrated over long distance in Germany in 1891).³⁰ While the colony’s railway network reached Armidale in 1883, the wider New England region was still quite isolated and Threlfall persevered with established and cheaper DC technology for the Gara installation.

Originally, power was to be transmitted at 3 kV DC to a substation located at West Hillgrove and then reduced to 400 volts for consumption; in practice, the transmission voltage appears to have been 1.6 kV.³¹ In evidence to the 1892 Select Committee hearings, Walter Palmer claimed that any company taking longer to than eighteen months to build the Gara plant ‘would deserve to be kicked out of the country’.³² Apparently heeding this advice, Parliament imposed the same time limit for completion. This soon proved problematic as construction began at the height of the 1893 colonial banking crisis (which reportedly led to delays at Gara and, more widely, economic depression).³³ In the end, Palmer, Threlfall, company manager and accountant Charles Michelmore (1863–1900) and the Crompton company’s representative and electrical engineer, Orlando Brain (1866–1936), were forced to commence partial operation in September 1894, about five months prior to the plant’s eventual completion, to comply with the enabling legislation.

It’s worth noting that the men responsible for designing and supervising construction were all quite young (late twenties to early thirties). And, given its comparative scale and pioneering nature in an Australian context, it’s perhaps not surprising that problems plagued the scheme from the start. The fluming soon began to shrink and leak and had to be repaired (it was later replaced); transmission losses were significant and wiring reportedly ‘fused in places’.³⁴ From about 1895, the Federation drought started to take hold throughout Australia. Annual rainfall figures in the late 1890s for the Hillgrove district don’t really indicate protracted drought but the small Gara weir and shallow dam could not cope with occasionally severe seasonal droughts either.³⁵ In conjunction with flume leakage issues, it would appear that the power station rarely ran to rated capacity (and never provided a reliable power supply for mining operations).³⁶ Financial problems also came to a head in 1895.³⁷ In fact, the original limited liability company collapsed that year, Walter Palmer being declared bankrupt the next.³⁸ Ownership of the plant then changed several times but when a £30,000 rebuild was undertaken 1899–1900 the fundamental need for a reliable water supply wasn’t remedied.³⁹

While a new flume was erected over a somewhat shorter route, the main improvement was a new and substantially larger dam at Blue Hole, just upstream of the original weir.⁴⁰ To date, this dam erroneously has been regarded as part of the original installation when it was, in fact, only a short-lived feature.⁴¹ Somewhat curiously, its design was entrusted to a NSW parliamentarian with no formal engineering qualifications, Frank Cotton (1857–1942), a member of the select committee which had examined the planned Gara scheme in 1892 and who also had links to Palmer’s Colo River proposal. Like the original company manager, Charles Michelmore, Cotton was radical politically—both men were single tax advocates and Michelmore had been treasurer of the Sydney Single Tax and Land Nationalisation Leagues.⁴² A working-class autodidact, Cotton recently had designed a low-cost weir on the Lachlan River near Forbes and, presumably, this experience led to his work at Hillgrove.⁴³ Cotton also managed to patent the timber cotter design utilised at the Gara River but, calamitously, the barely completed dam was severely damaged by flooding in mid 1900, repaired, but then destroyed by further flooding in 1901.⁴⁴ A witness to the original carnage stated the river rose ‘about four or five feet above the top of the wall, washed away a portion of the western bank, forced its way around the colossal structure, lifted it bodily in the air, and sent it flying downstream in fragments’.⁴⁵ In 1904, the mothballed plant was purchased by a local miner named John Pinto (c. 1869–1947),⁴⁶ seemingly for just scrap value. For about fifteen years, Pinto utilised the original weir to provide a modest supply for lighting purposes at Hillgrove.⁴⁷

Racing at Hillgrove in the early twentieth century. Events like this were also held at night and lit by the Gara River power station. Source: University of New England Archives and Regional Heritage Centre. — Racing at Hillgrove Common: undated but likely early twentieth century. Events like this were also held at night and lit by the Gara River power station. Source: UNERA.

Despite scaled-down operation, further water supply problems halted power generation temporarily in 1906 and 1915.⁴⁸ In 1908, falling rocks damaged the protective barrier erected over the power station, weighing down the roof; however, on this occasion the plant continued to operate.⁴⁹ John Pinto later planned to build a new and larger concrete dam but this and other expansion proposals put forward to Armidale City Council never eventuated.⁵⁰ It’s not clear exactly when the Gara power station shut down for good but, as we have seen, relatively few customers were still resident at Hillgrove in the final stages of the Great War. Newspaper files indicate that the power station was still operating in July 1918 and in late 1920 it was inspected by the Department of Public Works’ Chief Electrical Engineer, William Corin (1867–1929).⁵¹ However, the Armidale Chronicle noted in November 1919 that the water supply had (again) failed; in his final report presented to Armidale City Council in April 1921, Corin stated that the power station was no longer in use.⁵²

The Styx River Power Plant (1907)

Although the extended travails of the Gara scheme must have raised doubts about the utility of hydroelectric technology among local mining managers and syndicates, in 1906–07 the New Hillgrove Proprietary Mining Company, which also operated the Eleanora mine, built a 200 kW plant on the Styx River some 30 km east of Hillgrove.⁵³ The company persevered with hydroelectric technology in order to deal with the ongoing issue of excessive fuel costs.⁵⁴ The Styx River plant’s cost was estimated in 1906 at £6,000 (and may have had a 320 kW capacity in final form).⁵⁵ Drawing upon the general adoption of AC transmission worldwide, the installation utilised a much higher transmission current (23 kV) than its forbear to minimise losses over the significantly longer distance between the power house and Hillgrove.⁵⁶

New Hillgrove Proprietary Mine, 1906. Source: State Archives NSW. This was operated in conjunction with the better-known Eleanora mine on the Tableland at Hillgrove.

As noted above, comparatively little primary documentary information appears extant in respect of the Styx River plant. Typically, details have to be gleaned from summary newspaper mining reports. On the other hand, several interesting photographs of its construction and main features survive (see the image gallery below). Initially, the power station had to close after just a few months due to temporary cessation of Eleanora mining operations.⁵⁷ Subsequently, drought and flooding necessitated a new dam and other improvements; however, the plant does seem to have powered industrial machinery (crushing batteries, ore concentrators, air compressors and so forth) largely as intended until further drought suspended operations in 1915.⁵⁸ In any event, the Eleanora and associated mines ceased company operations that year⁵⁹ and the Styx River plant, reportedly in good condition, was sold for £3,000 and removed in 1917–18.⁶⁰ As noted earlier, John Pinto also wound up his operations at the Gara River soon after, having failed to convince the Armidale City Council to redevelop the site for its first municipal power supply.⁶¹

Historic Image Gallery

Relatively little infrastructure of either scheme survives and both power station sites are very difficult to access. Fortunately, a number of photographs of these early hydroelectric installations are now held at the University of New England Archives and Regional Heritage Centre at Armidale (unera). Few of the Gara photographs are dated but some can be approximately identified due to content (e.g. Cotton’s dam being built). Unlike the Gara images, nearly all the Styx River photographs were captured during or soon after the construction period (1906–07). Some were also taken by the noted itinerant photographer Joseph Check (1856–1936).

Woodcut engravings of the Gara River Hydroelectric scheme near Hillgrove NSW

Blue Hole on the Gara River near Armidale NSW c. 1900.

Frank Cotton's timber cotter dam at Blue Hole, Gara River near Armidale, c. 1899-1900.

Timber fluming at Gara River hydroelectric plant.

Timber fluming supplying historic hydroelectric power station at the Gara River near Armidale NSW.

Gara River Hydroelectric power station near Armidale.

Undated photo of the Gara Power Station Interior.

West Sunlight Crushing Battery at Metz, near Hillgrove NSW.

Workers outside hut at the Styx River about 1908.

Hydroelectric machinery being lowered into the Styx Gorge NSW 1907

Manually operated cable winch at Styx River NSW about 1907

Hydroelectric equipment being lowered into the Styx Gorge NSW 1907

Joseph Check photograph of Styx River Falls about 1908

Joseph Check photograph of men at Styx River

Power station at Styx River, probably late 1907.

Staff and machinery at the Styx River power station.

Some Common Features and Challenges

A number of the images above illustrate the main design similarities between the installations—particularly the use of wooden fluming to transmit water in a controlled fashion from relatively small weirs. At the Gara River, the approximate lines of both flumes is followed in part by the Threlfall Walking Track established by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service at the Blue Hole Picnic Area. Flume lines don’t seem apparent in the first systematic aerial photography taken of the area in 1943 suggesting that the Gara River flume images above were taken before that year (and the fluming had been removed or burnt by the same year). Some fallen trestle poles were evident when I last visited the site in 2016. However, the original concrete weir built near Blue Hole c. 1894 survives—as do flume cuttings on or near the Threlfall Walking Track.

Many of the Styx River photographs emphasise the considerable engineering challenges and safety hazards posed by the isolated gorge environment. The mining industry origins and virtually hidden location of both the power station buildings meant that their construction and design were purely utilitarian. In this respect, they can be contrasted with more accessible power station buildings in municipal ownership (e.g. the 1895 Duck Reach power station at Launceston). Remarkably, the whole Styx River plant reportedly was constructed by a team of just 12 miners working under the supervision of Moses O’Connor—a builder and mining foreman with no particular experience in hydroelectric engineering.⁶² O’Connor (1868–1947) then was also a Hillgrove Councillor who had to decline nomination as Mayor in order to supervise the Styx River construction work; he retained an interest in civic affairs and during the Great Depression was elected Mayor of Armidale City Council on a number of occasions.⁶³ While the Gara flume routes traversed comparatively gentle gullies, one of the main challenges that O’Connor and his men faced at the Styx River was the construction of support trestles which snaked precariously around sheer cliff faces. An account published in February 1907 noted: ‘In places the men have to hang by ropes to work in putting up the fluming’.⁶⁴ Photographs taken later that year also show how approximately 100 tons of power station equipment was lowered into the Styx gorge by a manual cable winch.⁶⁵ Archaeological remains situated above the Gara River power station site suggest that a similar method was used there.

Later Regional Power Stations and Plans

Two other regional hydroelectric plants followed these early examples. First, Dorrigo’s dairy factory and first town supply was generated by a 200 kW plant built on the Bielsdown River in 1922. This was designed by William Corin, mentioned above, who had emigrated to Tasmania in 1895 to supervise the early operation of Launceston’s municipal scheme.⁶⁶ As I’ve noted elsewhere, quite a lot of misinformation mars the study of early hydroelectric development in Australia. For example, the Launceston plant has been claimed to be first of its type despite the Gara River scheme’s substantial scale and potential output, its commercial aims (including street lighting) and its earlier operation.⁶⁷ Nor is this tendency a recent development. When the Dorrigo power station formally was opened by Premier George Fuller, it was claimed by some newspapers (including the Sydney Morning Herald and Telegraph) to be the first to operate in NSW.⁶⁸ Despite the Dorrigo district’s relatively high annual rainfall due to the orographic effect associated with the Great Escarpment, this relatively small power station also proved unreliable in droughts: from the early 1930s, it had to be supplemented by a crude oil generator.⁶⁹ Nonetheless, the hybrid power plant operated until about 1956 when the Dorrigo district was connected to the burgeoning state power grid.

Also in 1956, after a dam redesign and one fatal construction accident, the New England County Council opened a more substantial (in original form 2.7 MW, later expanded) hydroelectric power station on the Oaky River, about eight kilometres west of the old Styx River site.⁷⁰ This project was managed by Zihni Buzo, whose recollections and 16mm film record of the construction years form the basis of an interesting short film produced by Engineers Australia and published online by the University of Newcastle.

The Oaky River power station operated until its dam was severely damaged by flooding in early 2013. Also a small facility by modern standards, the dam has not been rebuilt—and can be contrasted with burgeoning wind and solar-power development in the wider New England region. However, following unprecedented water shortages in Armidale and neighbouring towns during recent drought, Armidale Regional Council in 2022–23 purchased the site with plans to repair the dam, augment town water supplies and possibly recommence hydroelectric generation.

Finally, it should be noted that in the early 1980s the New South Wales Electricity Commission proposed a large (1,000 MW) pumped storage hydroelectric project on the Apsley River and tributaries in the vicinity of Moona Plains.⁷¹ By this period the environmental costs of large-scale hydroelectric development had become a major political issue in Australia (particularly the proposed Gordon-below-Franklin dam in Tasmania, but also at a national level).⁷² Despite public support for the proposed dam in the notably conservative Walcha district, it also raised considerable environmental concern and opposition in the wider community which, ultimately, led to the formation by the Labor state government of Oxley Wild Rivers National Park in 1986.⁷³ In expanded form, this park now encompasses most of the historic Gara River power station sites.

Concluding Remarks

Undeniably, the Gara scheme had a rather chequered operational history; however, it also represented significant technological innovation at the national level. To reiterate, it was the first industrially-orientated hydroelectric plant to operate in the Australian colonies and the first enterprise of its type intended to market electricity for commercial purposes (including street and domestic lighting at Hillgrove). It was also primarily designed by Richard Threlfall, one of the leading scientists in Australia in the late nineteenth century. While the Gara installation was flawed in both design and execution, these issues were perhaps not surprising given that it was an unprecedented undertaking in a relatively isolated Australian rural context. Plainly, the smaller and later Styx River installation did not have the same historical significance as the Gara plant. However, the construction of both was predicated upon practical skills and knowledge gained mining the gorge country surrounding Hillgrove—as surviving photographs attest.

Endnotes

1
Sydney Morning Herald, 4 November 1889, p. 7; Australian Town and Country Journal, 8 February 1890, p. 24; Sydney Mail, 24 May 1890, p. 1168.
2
Armidale Express, 14 September 1894, p. 4; Armidale Chronicle, 15 September 1894, p. 2. See also Denis Gojak, ‘Gara River: An Early Hydro-Electric Scheme in Northern New South Wales’, Australian Historical Archaeology, Vol. 6, 1988, pp. 3–11; Graham Wilson, ‘The Growth and Decline of Hillgrove: a history of a northern New South Wales mining town from 1880 to 1920’, MA Thesis, University of Sydney, 1990, ch. 4.
3
Armidale Chronicle, 15 September 1894, p. 2. For local gold production summaries see contemporaneous NSW Department of Mines Annual Report compilations, Hillgrove and Armidale Divisions, 1876–1974. A digitised version is available at the NSW Geological Survey digs database, R0051327. In relation to total annual gold production figures cited therein, note that Hillgrove and nearby West Hillgrove were often recorded separately.
4
For Aboriginal occupation in the wider area see Luke Godwin, ‘Inside information: settlement and alliance in the late Holocene of Northeastern New South Wales’, PhD thesis, University of New England, 1990. More generally see R.B. Walker, Old New England: a history of the Northern Tablelands, 1818–1900, Sydney 1966 and various essays in Alan Atkinson et al., High lean country: land, people and memory in New England, Sydney, 2006.
5
J.F. Campbell, ‘Discovery and early pastoral settlement of New England’, The Royal Australian Historical Society Journal and Proceedings, Vol. 8, 1922, pp. 236, 265; John Ferry, ‘Colonial Armidale: A Study of People, Place and Power in the Formation of a Country Town’, PhD Thesis, University of New England, 1995, pp. 37, 54 and elsewhere. This thesis was published in revised form as Colonial Armidale, St Lucia, 1999.
6
For Armidale generally see Ferry, ‘Colonial Armidale’.
7
Department of Mines, Annual Report Compilations, Hillgrove, fols. 6–20; Wilson, ‘Hillgrove’, pp. 2–3.
8
NSW Department of Mines, Annual Report Compilations, Hillgrove, fols. 19–34.
9
Wilson, ‘Hillgrove’, p. 43; Armidale Chronicle, 24 April 1901, p. 4.
10
See R.S. Neale, G. Ramsay, S. Fisher and G.R. Henning, ‘Life and Death In Hillgrove’, Australian Economic History Review, Vol. 21, 1981, pp. 91–113.
11
NSW Department of Mines, Annual Report Compilations, Hillgrove, fols. 70–120.
12
Armidale Chronicle, 6 April 1895, p. 3.
13
Department of Mines, Annual Reports Compilation, Hillgrove, fol. 126.
14
Wilson, ‘Hillgrove’, p. 43.
15
Sydney Morning Herald, 2 June 1921, p. 5; Scone Advocate, 30 August 1921, p. 4.
16
Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2021 Census All Person Quickstats, Hillgrove (NSW) Local Area.
17
Barrier Miner, 22 July 1890, p. 2. For Riddel, see his obituary in the Sydney Morning Herald, 22 December 1928, p. 14.
18
‘Report from the Select Committee Report on the Australasian Rights Purchase Bill’, Votes and proceedings of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 1892–93 session, Vol. 8, fols. 307–30; ‘Report from the Select Committee on the Hillgrove and Armidale Water-power Electric Bill’, Votes and proceedings of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly, 1892–93 session, Vol. 8, fols. 337–55 .
19
New South Wales Government Gazette, 20 March 1893, pp. 2277–88.
20
For Threlfall see R.W. Home, ‘First physicist of Australia: Richard Threlfall at the University of Sydney, 1886–1898’, Historical Records of Australian Science, Vol. 6, 1986, pp. 333-57.
21
Zeehan and Dundas Herald, 6 September 1893, p. 4; 22 August 1898, p. 2. Gojak, ‘Gara River’, p. 4.
22
For the original Colo-Grose scheme see ‘Select Committee Report, Australasian Rights Purchase Bill’. Windsor and Richmond Gazette, 25 February 1893, p. 6; 10 February 1894, p. 5.
23
See generally Adam Allerhand, ‘A contrarian history of early electric power distribution’, Proceedings of the IEEE, vol. 105, 2017, pp. 774-75. See also E.D. Adams, Niagara Power: the history of the Niagara Power Company, 1886–1918, Niagara Falls, 1927 (Vol. I; Vol. II).
24
Launceston Examiner, 22 December 1895, p. 5; Tasmanian, 14 December 1895, p. 16. Launceston Examiner, 8 April 1929, p. 9. Miles Pierce, ‘An Australian Hydroelectric Milestone—the 1895 Duck Reach Power Scheme’, Australian Journal of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Vol. 3, 2007, pp. 259–72.
25
Select Committee Report, Hillgrove and Armidale Water-power Electric Bill, fols. 348–49.
26
See Ross Mainwaring, ‘Tramways down the gorge: the story of Hillgrove, 1887–1921′, Light Railways, No. 94, 1986, pp. 3–35.
27
Armidale Chronicle, 16 September 1894, p. 2. Walter Palmer’s original estimate of the total cost was about £40,000. See Select Committee Report, Hillgrove and Armidale Water-power Electric Bill, fol. 345.
28
Armidale Express, 14 September 1894, p. 4.
29
Gojak, ‘Gara River’, p. 4.
30
Home, ‘Richard Threlfall’, pp. 335–36; 345–47; Allerhand, ‘Early electric power distribution’, p. 773.
31
Select Committee Report, Hillgrove and Armidale Water-power Electric Bill, fol. 344; Sydney Mail, 17 February 1894, p. 353. Daily Telegraph, 14 August 1894, p. 5.
32
Select Committee Report, Hillgrove and Armidale Water-power Electric Bill, fol. 345.
33
Sydney Mail, 17 February 1894, p. 353. For banks see John Turner and Charles Hickson, ‘Free banking gone awry: the Australian Banking Crisis of 1893’, Financial History Review, vol. 9, no. 2, 2002, pp. 147–67.
34
Armidale Chronicle, 24 April 1895, p. 2; Armidale Express, 24 May 1895, p. 4; Bulletin, 20 April 1895, p. 9. Gojak, ‘Gara River’, p. 4.
35
Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Hillgrove Station (Hillview, Number 57028), Daily Rainfall observations, 1895–1900. It should be noted that the Gara River’s catchment is quite large meaning the Hillgrove rainfall data may not be entirely indicative of water flow and levels at Blue Hole. See also Gojak, ‘Gara River’, p. 4 for rainfall in 1895.
36
Bulletin, 15 May 1897, p. 9.
37
Gojak, ‘Gara River’, p. 4.
38
Gojak, ‘Gara River’, p. 4. Armidale Chronicle, 2 November 1895, p. 4; Bankruptcy File 10987, Walter Harcourt Palmer, Date of Sequestration 7 July 1896, NSW State Archives.
39
Advertiser, 28 October 1899, p. 8. The Gara scheme’s corporate history is quite complex. A proper examination goes beyond the aims of this short article but reported proprietors from 1894 include the the Hillgrove and Armidale Water-power Electric Company, the New England Electric Supply Company, the Sandon Electric Light and Power Works, the International Railway Corporation (UK), the Hillgrove Electrical Corporation, the Armidale and Hillgrove Electric Light Company and, finally, John Pinto (seemingly in partnership c. 1908).
40
Armidale Express, 23 January 1900, p. 5; Sydney Morning Herald, 23 January 1900, p. 3; Hillgrove Guardian, 13 January 1900, p. 2.
41
See, for example, Austral Archaeology Pty. Ltd., ‘Conservation Management Plan, Gara River Hydro Electric Scheme’, Final Report for New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service, October 2004, pp. 26–27; Gojak, ‘Gara River’, p. 6. The Gara plant’s Wikipedia entry reiterates this and contains other factual errors.
42
Sydney Morning Herald, 24 January 1889, p. 6; Daily Telegraph, 3 February 1890, p. 3. For radical political culture at this time see Bruce Scates, A new Australia: citizenship, radicalism and the first republic, Cambridge, 1997.
43
Sydney Telegraph, 14 April 1900, p. 12; Wilson, ‘Hillgrove’, p. 52. Cotton’s original weir at Forbes was completed in early 1899. See Evening News, 3 February 1899, p. 3.
44
Daily Telegraph, 14 April 1900, p. 12; Armidale Chronicle, 28 July 1900, p. 4; 4 September 1901, p. 5; New South Wales Government Gazette, 4 September 1900, p. 6867.
45
Armidale Chronicle, 28 July 1900, p. 4.
46
Sydney Morning Herald, 26 December 1947, p. 10.
47
Hillgrove Guardian, 3 December 1904, p. 2; Armidale Chronicle, 26 February 1913, p. 2.
48
Armidale Express, 25 May 1906, p. 4; Armidale Chronicle, 11 December 1915, p. 10.
49
Armidale Express, 6 March 1908, p. 4.
50
Armidale Chronicle, 21 August 1912, p. 4; Armidale Express, 22 October 1912, p. 2.
51
Armidale Chronicle, 20 July 1918, p. 6; 8 December 1920, p. 4.
52
Armidale Chronicle, 29 November 1919, p. 2; 20 April 1921, p. 2. In 1926 John Pinto offered for sale large amounts of 18-inch diameter steel pipe (likely the salvaged penstock) and insulated copper wiring. See Sydney Morning Herald, 21 October 1926, p. 14.
53
Sydney Morning Herald, 12 December 1907, p. 11.
54
Sydney Morning Herald, 16 October 1906, p. 11.
55
Sydney Morning Herald, 16 October 1906, p. 11; 12 December 1907, p. 11. Palmer and Tritton, Consulting Engineers, Report on Electrical Development in New South Wales, Sydney, 1937, p. 144.
56
Armidale Express, 16 February 1912, p. 10.
57
Department of Mines, Annual Report Compilations, Hillgrove, fol. 79.
58
Sydney Morning Herald, 10 August 1908, p. 9; 3 January 1913, p. 11; 10 February 1914, p. 12. Department of Mines, Annual Report Compilations, Hillgrove, fol. 103.
59
Department of Mines, Annual Report Compilations, Hillgrove, fol. 108.
60
Daily Examiner, 28 November 1917, p. 2; Sun, 12 July 1918, p. 5. Wilson, ‘Hillgrove’, p. 57.
61
Wilson, ‘Hillgrove’, pp. 58–59.
62
Armidale Express, 20 September 1944, p. 6.
63
Uralla Times, 23 February 1907, p. 2; Armidale Express, 20 September 1944, p. 6.
64
Gundagai Independent, 20 February 1907, p. 2.
65
Sydney Morning Herald, 22 July 1907, p. 9; Wilson, ‘Hillgrove’, p. 56.
66
Don Dorrigo Gazette, 29 January 1921, p. 4; Pierce, ‘Duck Reach’, pp. 263–67.
67
H.H. McFie, ‘Duck Reach—the first significant Hydro-electric power development in Australasia’, Sixth National Conference on Engineering Heritage, Hobart, 1992, p. 37.
68
See, for example, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 November 1922, p. 8; Daily Telegraph, 27 November 1922, p. 5; Tweed Daily, 2 December 1922, p. 6.
69
Macleay Chronicle, 21 January 1931, p. 9; Don Dorrigo Gazette, 22 March 1932, p. 6.
70
Armidale Express, 4 November 1953, p. 14; 8 January 1954, p. 3; 24 February 1954, p. 6.
71
Walcha News, 25 February 1982, p. 1; Sydney Morning Herald, 4 March 1982, p. 10.
72
See Greg Buckman, Tasmania’s wilderness battles: a history, Crows Nest, 2008.
73
Sydney Morning Herald, 4 March 1982, p. 10; 30 March 1985, p. 13; 21 April 1986, p. 2.