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Hydraulic Elevators In Gopeng Consolidated Tin Mines
This used but not posted, divided back, postcard shows a Palong of Gopeng Consolidated Ltd. on the skyline and the elevated pipeline up to the Palong.
Dr Ho Tak Ming provided the following history:
"The Gopeng Tin Mining Company was started by F. Douglas Osborne, an Irish mining engineer who came to Kinta in 1890. He was employed as manager of the Leh Chin Mine at Changkat Pari near Ipoh where he introduced the first hydraulic monitor in the State. However, the terrain at Changkat Pari was not suitable for hydraulic mining as it was not sufficiently steep.
In 1893 Osborne obtained the concession of a hill at Gopeng which was suitable for hydraulic mining. However, the drawback at Gopeng was that there was insufficient water to work the mines - in fact, many of the Chinese miners were leaving Gopeng for the newly-established township of Kampar. Osborne proposed to pipe water, through pipes made of sheet-steel sections riveted together, from the sources of the Sungei Kampar at the foothills of Cameron Highlands, a distance of seven miles from Gopeng, to work his monitors. He got James Wickett of Redruth and his Cornish friends interested in the project. Ten shareholders subscribed £700 each to form the Gopeng Tin Mining Company, initially working with two monitors. This was the first instance of hydraulic mining for tin in the world. It was hugely successful and could work land profitably that had been too poor to be used under any other system.
In 1894 Osborne procured an additional concession of 300 acres for the company. Over time the shareholders invested another £11,000 to bring the number of monitors to ten in 1904, altogether spending £18,000. On that basis the company was reconstructed, and the profit for one year alone (1905) was £18,000. All in all, Gopeng had paid back the shareholders’ money several times over, making them the luckiest accidental tin miners in the country.
Together with another mining engineer, WRH Chappel, Osborne founded the famous mining consultant firm of Osborne and Chappel, eventually managing a dozen large mines (it was known in Chinese as “Sup Yee Kong Si”). The firm introduced the same system of mining successfully to other properties, such as New Gopeng, Kinta and Seremban. In 1912 the Gopeng Tin Mining Company merged with New Gopeng Ltd and Ulu Gopeng Ltd to form the famous Gopeng Consolidated Ltd, which was one of the most successful tin mining companies in the country.
Osborne’s idea of piping water in gigantic pipes over such an enormous distance to work his hydraulic monitors was a bold and innovative concept, which spearheaded the introduction of modern technology to the tin mining industry in this country."
To read more about the Kampar / Gopeng Hydraulic Mining Pipelines, click here.