BROTHER URIAH DUDLEY, MINING ENGINEER AND FREEMASON
by Geoff Randall
Uriah Dudley
Shortly after Uriah Dudley was born in 1852 in Bedfordshire, England, his parents migrated to Australia. They were part of the mass immigration of Victoria’s Gold Rush era and settled first of all in Geelong. During the Gympie Gold Boom in Queensland the family moved to that site. Uriah completed an apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer at John Walker’s Maryborough, Queensland foundry. This foundry was a branch of the Ballarat operations of Walker’s. It is noted in passing that among other products of Walker’s was the building of numerous steam-locomotives for the railway systems of the colonies in Australia. Once Uriah had completed his apprenticeship, he moved to Herberton in 1872 during that part of Queensland’s pioneering tin-mining operations. In 1879 he returned to Gympie as operator of an engineering company. During this period of his life he began reporting on mines on the Mulgrave Goldfield, inland from Cairns.
During the early 1880s he went to Sydney to improve his skills by studying mining and geology through the Sydney Board of Technical Education. As a result of the recent boom in mining activity in the Barrier Ranges in remote western N.S.W. he was initially offered the management of the Sydney Rockwell Silver Mining Company (otherwise known as Wright’s) south of the nascent Broken Hill Line of Lode. The Rockwell operation was one of a number of small short-lived mines in the vicinity.
In 1889, Uriah Dudley became Operations Manager of the Umberumberka Silver Mining Company, which was at that time the deepest on the field adjacent to Silverton. He was responsible for ordering appropriate machinery from the Gawler Foundry of the May Brothers, whose pioneering work in Research and Development of innovative mining machinery, became an extremely successful supplier of plant to Broken Hill companies during the early phase of operations there.
Shortly after this appointment, he became extremely active in the Silverton community. He was principal instructor in physics, mathematics, mining, geology and chemistry at the Silverton Technical School. He was Secretary of the Barrier Ranges Mine Manager’s Association, Mayor of Silverton in 1890-1892, Justice of the Peace, Chairman of the Licensing Court, A member of the Hospital Board, and President of the Silverton Chess Club. He was an early member of Umberumberka Masonic Lodge (originally No. 2116 English Constitution) which had moved into its own Temple in 1886) holding the position of Treasurer.
He was also called to give evidence at the Royal Commission into the Gold-Mining Industry in Victoria in 1890, where his main theme was the need for better education for Mine Managers.
In 1893 he moved to Broken Hill during the decline of Silverton. He was manager of the Chloridising Works of the BHP Company. He was at the time in Broken Hill an instructor in mining and mineralogy at the Broken Hill Mechanics Institute.
Realizing the further need for better education, he instigated a campaign of vigorous letter-writing to Mine Managers all over the world to form an Australasian Institute of Mining Engineers. He sent out about 400 letters during this campaign, recommending the adoption and formation of a representative body based on a similar model in the United States. As a result such a body was formed in April 1893 whose early personnel mainly came from the Broken Hill managers. He was the original Secretary of the new association until 1897. The first meeting was held in Adelaide in the Exhibition Building on North Terrace. This organisation has recently celebrated its 125th Anniversary, which despite a change of name, a tribute to the vision of Uriah Dudley, its Founding Father.
During his time in the Barrier Ranges Mining area, it was customary for new mining companies to call on successful Managers from the district to assess the potential viability of their recently acquired deposits. In the Thackaringa area, it is noticeable that Uriah Dudley was one of those asked to offer his opinion on such deposits as the Lily and others.
In his active role as Secretary of the Australasian Institute of Mining Engineers in 1895 he was able to provide to the Tasmanian Museum a large and comprehensive collection of minerals from Broken Hill and also some auriferous ores from South Africa. A record of this donation is to be found in the “Hobart Mercury” of 2nd March, 1895. It would be very interesting to know whether these specimens still are to be found in the Tasmanian Museum.
Uriah Dudley was not only a gifted and versatile engineer, but also had a number of inventions to his credit, mostly in the field of ore-processing and reduction. Two of his contributions to research projects included one for mining plans and models, and a detailed description and diagrams of the Umberumberka Ore-body in 1893. He also was one of the first writers to discuss the sulphide and zinc problems in 1896 in an article called “A Mining Puzzle”.
In late 1895 he left Broken Hill and moved to Western Australia at the height of the boom on the Eastern Goldfields where he managed the Golden Bar Gold Mining company at Coolgardie. He later managed a mine at Menzies. During this time he was an active member of Menzies Doric Scottish Constitution Freemasons Lodge. Apparently he also filled the role of Junior Grand Warden at an Installation in that Lodge. Two years later he moved back to NSW to manage Webb’s Silver Mine for the White Rock Silver Mines, at Drake. It was while he was at this mine that he was most active in applying for patents for improved ore-dressing machines. At the turn of the century in 1900 we find him in Denver City, Colorado, where was employed as a mine-manager. Such was his wide-ranging knowledge that the locals there referred to him as Professor Dudley.
He did not stay long in America, for by 1901 he had returned to Western Australia, where he took over as manager of the Emperor Gold Mine near Day Dawn. It was here he once again became a Justice of the Peace and a licensing magistrate for the Murchison district. In 1904 he gave evidence in Perth at the Royal commission into mine ventilation and sanitation. After appearing there he travelled to London to raise capital for several gold-mining properties including Great Fingall, Fingall North and East Fingall at Cue. During his time there he was given membership of a number of Geological and Mineralogical organisations., which includes membership of the Liverpool Geological Association in 1893 and Vice-Chairmanship of the north of England Mining and Mechanical Engineers, West Australian Branch in 1896. He was also a member of the Australasian Geological Society. While in London during 1907 he suffered a paralytic stroke from which he did not recover. He retired and returned to Sydney, where lived at Annandale N.S,W. until his death in March 1909.
His marriage to Emma Neale at Gympie in 1879, produced two children, neither of whom survived into adulthood. His son, Charles Dudley, aged 15, was drowned at Glenelg Beach, South Australia on Christmas Day 1895 when his canoe overturned. Apparently Charles Dudley had a disabled arm, which meant that he was unable to swim, to save himself. This information is based on a report that was found in a contemporary newspaper, by Wor. Bro. Doug Daws, the historian of the Scottish Constitution Masonic Lodges in Kalgoorlie, in 2020.
I have not been able to find in my researches full details of his Masonic career, but further search in Umberumberka Lodge records may turn up more information. Nevertheless, Uriah Dudley was a man of prodigious ability whose achievements deserve, in my opinion, more recognition than has previously been the case.
Maryborough Chronicle, Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser – QLD -11 February 1909, page 2
References: Anonymous, “The Barrier Silver and Tin Fields in 1888”, Adelaide, 1888.
'Dew, John. M. “Mining People- A Century”, Australian institute of Mining and Metallurgy, Publication Series 1/93, Victoria, 1993.
Jaquet, J.B. “Geology of the Broken Hill Lode and Barrier Range Mineral Field, New South Wales”, Department of Mines, Sydney, 1894.
Kearns, R.H.B., “Silverton”, “Broken Hill 1883-1893”, “Broken Hill, 1894-1914”, Broken Hill Historical Society, 1972-1976. Newspaper Sources:- Australian National Library, Trove Newspaper Website, Canberra, A.C.T.
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