John Agnew
AGNEW, John Alexander, AOUSM MIMM MIMMAmer MAusIMM (1872-1939)
Born in New Zealand, Agnew graduated from the Otago School of Mines with a mine manager’s certificate and was working in Western Australia in 1896. He was employed by Bewick Moreing and Company (BMC), mine managers and mining consultants, as underground manager at the Sons of Gwalia Ltd mine (MMGF Mt Malcolm) at Gwalia near Leonora, under H C Hoover and then R.H. James (q.v.) in 1898-1899. In October 1899 he was transferred to Tientsin in north eastern China where he worked as assistant to Hoover. During the Boxer rebellion Agnew and Hoover were among the Europeans who were besieged in Tientsin until relieved by allied troops. In September 1900 Agnew’s work in China was completed and he returned to Western Australia to continue working for BMC. Meanwhile in London, in December 1901, Hoover had been made a partner in BMC and became responsible for operating all mines managed by BMC which were then principally in Western Australia.
In February 1902 Agnew was manager of a mine at Pendinnie near Lake Carey (NCGF Mt Morgans). In 1904 he managed the Golden Age Consolidated Ltd mine at Wiluna (EMGF) shortly before its closure and then the Vivien GMg Co.’s mine, 16 km north of Lawlers (EMGF). At the beginning of 1905 he managed the closure of East Murchison United Ltd (EMGF Lawlers and Waroonga). Later in 1905 he took over the management of the Lancefield GMg Co’s mine at Laverton. (MMGF). BMC’s agency company, London & Western Australian Exploration Co., had worked this large low grade deposit under option from 1902 until it was acquired in 1904 by the Lancefield company. Hoover hoped that the mine would be a model for future large scale mining of low grade deposits.
Agnew had only been there for a short time when he was transferred to Kookynie to take over the management of the Cosmopolitan Pty Ltd mine (NCGF Niagara). When Bewick Moreing’s general manager in Western Australia, W.J. Loring, (q.v.) was made responsible for all Bewick Moreing’s Australian operations and moved to Melbourne in 1905, Agnew was made assistant general manager, responsible to Loring for the company’s Western Australian activities. He was also made manager of the BMC’s agency and exploration company, London & Western Australian Exploration Co. (1906-1910) and of its successor London, Australian & General Exploration Co. (1911-1912). Both companies employed inspecting engineers to visit and report on mines which were starting up. They then advised Bewick Moreing which might be bought and developed by a public company. During the 1900s it became progressively more difficult to successfully launch new Western Australian mining companies as fewer promising prospects were discovered and mining investors in London were turning to other mining fields.
Agnew was elected a member of the Australasian Institute of Mining Engineers in 1908 and of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy of America in 1909. Agnew returned to manage the Lancefield mine the treatment plant of which required reconstruction. The new plant successfully treated the ore but its maximum throughput was uneconomical and the mine was closed in 1909.
Agnew was appointed general manager of BMC in Western Australia in 1912. The following year he left the company and moved to London where he became an independent mining consultant associated with Herbert Hoover who, having left BMC in 1908, had become an international mining financier. In July 1914 Agnew began to work full time for Hoover and to act as his alternate on various boards of directors as Hoover’s time was increasingly taken up with philanthropic work in war torn Belgium. In 1915 Agnew became a member of the technical committee which was formed to advise Lake View and Oroya Exploration Company (the financial group formed after the amalgamation of Lake View Consols and Hannan’s Star), and also Yuanmi Gold Mines (EMGF, Black Range, Sandstone) of which Agnew was also a director. He became a director of the Bawdin Syndicate, a group formed to refinance Burma Mines Ltd which operated a very large silver lead zinc mine in north eastern Burma.
In 1920 he became a director of the Zinc Corporation of Broken Hill and of Francois Cementation Company. In the 1920s he was appointed a director of the London based mining finance house Consolidated Gold Fields of South Africa and in 1928 he was elected to the board of Lake View and Star Ltd (ECGF Boulder). On his advice the operating subsidiary of Consolidated Gold Fields, New Consolidated Gold Fields, provided capital for the further development by Lake View and Star of the Chaffer leases adjoining those of Golden Horseshoe Estates Company Ltd which were acquired in 1929. In the same year Agnew became chairman of Lake View and Star and, under his guidance, the mine undertook extensive modernisation. Underground transport was reorganised and electrified, ore treatment was centralised and froth flotation was adopted. Both mining and processing costs were substantially reduced. Agnew was made chairman of Consolidated Gold Fields Ltd in 1934. He received the Gold Medal of the Institute of Mining and Metallurgy shortly afterwards.
In 1930 W.S. Robinson, the Australian mining financier, formed Gold Mines of Australia Ltd which was backed by a group of international mining companies including Consolidated Gold Fields. Agnew became a London director of Gold Mines of Australia in 1930 and, in 1934, a director of Gold Exploration and Finance Company of Australia Ltd., which had financial oversight of the group. He was a member of the London advisory committee of Western Mining Corporation and of Triton Gold Mines NL (MGF Reedy’s Find near Cue) of which he was also a director. In Kalgoorlie the Robinson group formed Gold Mines of Kalgoorlie Ltd (ECGF Boulder, Kalgoorlie) to consolidate leases mainly on the eastern side of the Golden Mile. Agnew was thus associated with the two most powerful groups on the Golden Mile, Lake View and Star and Gold Mines of Kalgoorlie, which by 1939 had become rival organisations. In 1939 Agnew was also chairman of directors of Wiluna Gold Corporation but in that year he died in California.
References:
JCMWA 1904, 1905, 1908;
WAMBEJ 7 Oct 1905;
ER July 1912;
Skinner 1915, 1920;
Obit MER Aug 1939;
MCER 31;
ProcAusIMM 115, 1939;
TIMM 49, 1939;
L. Clark;
Bertola;
ArcAusMM;
LV&S 1960
