Mount Hope (elevation 223 m) is a settlement in western New South Wales, Australia. It is situated on the Kidman Way, 95 kilometres north of Hillston and 160 km south of Cobar. During the 1870s, a copper mine commenced operations at Mount Hope. In the mid-1880s, a proposed township in the area was officially surveyed and named Nombinnie, but the name has seldom been used. In the meantime, the town of Mount Hope sprang up, closer to the mine.
At the 2021 census, Mount Hope and surrounding area had a population of 16 people living in 10 private dwellings, with a median age of 30 years. The only remaining business at Mount Hope is the Royal Hotel (commonly referred to as the 'Mount Hope Pub') which offers food, beverages and accommodation (though fuel is no longer available).
History Indigenous origins The Mount Hope region is within the traditional lands of the Wangaaypuwan dialect speakers (also known as Wangaibon) of the Ngiyampaa people.
'Coan Downs' station 'Coan Downs' was a consolidated pastoral holding in Blaxland county (Western Division) made up of the previous Bundure, Coree, Gonn, Gooan, Killeen, Wagga, Yara and Yara Block B runs.Division of Pastoral Holdings, New South Wales Government Gazette, 11 July 1885 (Issue No. 278), page 4419. Located about 40 miles north of the Lachlan River, the ‘Coan Downs’ pastoral run was leased by the Desailly brothers (Francis and George) in the late 1860s. By the early 1870s the station was under the management of the Melbourne Banking Company. In 1873 a shepherd on ‘Coan Downs’ station, Alexander Fisher, investigated "an unusual hill" on the pastoral run and "found copper mineralisation" and withered and yellowed vegetation on the site.Open Column, letter to the editor from ‘Miner’ (Hillston), Riverine Grazier (Hay), 8 April 1874, page 3. The location of Fisher's discovery of copper ore was about ten miles south-east of the 'Coan Downs' station homestead and about three miles north-east of Mount Hope, a 300 feet high landmark "standing out in bold relief from the surrounding hills".Visit to Mount Hope Copper Mine, Riverine Grazier (Hay), 23 June 1875, page 2.
Mount Hope Copper Mining Company A group of businessmen from Hay soon became involved in the discovery of copper ore at Mount Hope. In October 1873 Henry C. Viviain, a Hay auctioneer, arrived at Booligal with “some very rich specimens of copper ore brought from Mount Hope”. Viviain claimed that “the mountain is formed entirely… of this ore”.Booligal, Riverine Grazier (Hay), 29 October 1873, page 2. The copper ore was sent to Melbourne and assayed at a reported yield of 60 percent.Telegrams, Riverine Grazier (Hay), 24 December 1873, page 3. The first shipment of ore from Mount Hope, weighing 10 tons, arrived at Hay in December 1873 on a dray “decorated with flags”. From Hay it was conveyed by water to Adelaide on the Cumberoona steamer.Mount Hope Copper Mines, Riverine Grazier (Hay), 10 December 1873, page 2. An advertisement in late December in the Riverine Grazier, lodged by Thomas Blewett and Henry B. Welsh of Hay, called for tenders "to carry by land and water, 1,000 tons of copper ore via Hay, from the Mount Hope Copper Mines, 150 miles from Hay, to the smelting works, Adelaide".Mount Hope Copper Mines, Riverine Grazier (Hay), 31 December 1873, page 3.
A second discovery of copper ore in the Mount Hope vicinity was made soon afterwards by McDowell and Mackenzie, in a porphyry formation just three miles or so south of the Mount Hope mine, which they named the Great Central Copper Mine. In February 1874 a third discovery was made in the district (by R. D. Jones), six miles north-east of the Mount Hope mine.
In September 1874 the Mount Hope Copper Mining Company (Limited) was registered by the company manager, Thomas Clay, with a nominal capital of sixty thousand pounds (made up of five pound shares fully subscribed). Shareholders included a selection of businessmen (mostly from Hay) and district landholders.Mount Hope Copper Mining Company (Limited), New South Wales Government Gazette, 18 September 1874 (Issue No. 219), page 2838. Richard Hollow, with “thirty years’ experience in copper mining in Cornwall and South Australia”, was appointed manager of the Mount Hope Mine. A manager’s house, a store, blacksmith's shop and miners’ huts were constructed at the mine site and three water tanks were excavated. However, development of the Mount Hope Mine was hampered by a shortage of water and the cost of transporting the ore.
In February 1877 it was reported that at a special meeting at Hay of the Mount Hope Copper Mining Company "the chairman stated that all operations at the mine had been suspended until such times as the shareholders should agree upon some plan by which to work the mine". In the interim “the company's property would be in charge of a responsible caretaker”.Various Districts, Sydney Mail and New South Wales Advertiser, 3 March 1877, page 268. In 1878 the company made a call on shareholders of sixpence in the pound. By November it was disclosed that “there were 2000 shares forfeited for non-payment of calls”.Mining Items, Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney), 9 November 1878, page 23. In February 1881 the principals of the Mount Hope Copper Mining Company began the process of setting up a new company.Mount Hope Copper Mining Company, Hay Standard, 16 February 1881, page 2. In January 1882 the old company was dissolved and its assets transferred to the New Mount Hope Copper Mining Company.Mount Hope Copper-mining Company, New South Wales Government Gazette, 31 January 1882 (Issue No. 45), page 600.
Mount Hope township
The formation of the New Mount Hope Copper Mining Company involved an injection of capital from the smelting company, Messrs. W. J. Weston and Co. of Sydney (representing half the share value) and the transfer of the registered office from Hay to Sydney. The construction of smelting furnaces at Mount Hope were commenced under the management of Captain Mathew Bryant. By February 1881 one furnace was “almost completed and another in a forward state”. Miners were “busy getting out the ore” and, as reported by a resident, “the deep sound of a blast or shot as they call it, startles us eight or ten times a day”.Mount Hope, Riverine Grazier (Hay), 16 February 1881, page 2. The description of Mount Hope in February 1881 was optimistic about the prospects of the settlement. The writer noted that “Mount Hope has arisen again from the ashes of the first attempt to develop its grand mineral resources, and what was a desert of rocks a few months ago is now a busy little town that may soon rival Cobar”. It was estimated that the adult male population was about fifty or sixty. Women and children were also present; the writer remarked: “I never saw such a place for children; it is like an ant bed, but they all seem healthy and happy”.
In August 1881 new machinery installed at the New Mount Hope Mine was started up. The steam engine was “a horizontal engine of twenty horse power with Cornish boiler”, driving “Madden’s new patent crackers, with winding gear and rollers for crushing the ore”. Two furnaces were in operation, to which the crushed ore was conveyed by a tramway. Since the first furnace started in April there had been “140 tons of copper turned out and sent away”. The population of the township “exceeds 400 souls, but as soon as rain comes it will double that number”. There were two stores, “one just newly opened”, as well as “three hotels, two bakers’ shops, two blacksmiths’ shops, two butchers’ shops, also numerous other business palaces of minor importance, and private dwellings are dotted here and there, scattered as on all new mining townships”.Mount Hope, Riverine Grazier (Hay), 24 August 1881, page 2.
In November 1882 it was reported that “a Government tank of 25,000 yards is being excavated for the benefit of the public” at Mount Hope. A post office and a bank had opened in the township. Four stores were established “and another in course of erection”. The population “exceeds 500 souls”.Descriptive Notes: Mount Hope: Its Resources and Prospects, Hillston News, 4 November 1882, page 3.
The Great Central Copper Mine south of Mount Hope township had re-commenced operations during 1882. A company had been formed in 1881 to work the mine and, beginning in April 1881, three shafts were sunk under the management of C. L. Cawse. By late 1882 furnaces, sheds and an engine-house were being constructed. Adjoining the Great Central mine was the less developed South Mount Hope mine, the property of “Brown and party”. Seven miles north-west of Mount Hope township was the undeveloped Mount Allen copper mine.
By 1883 the New Mount Hope mine was employing 200 men and boys and had produced 2,088 tons of ore to produce 431 tons of copper. A township of 800 people had grown up around the mine with four hotels, a billiard hall and boxing saloon, four stores, a post office and a bank. This was a prosperous period for the New Mount Hope company; for several years dividends of 2s. 6d. per share were paid to shareholders.
In November 1884 portions of Crown Lands were “declared to be set apart” as a site for “the village of Nombinnie”.Site for the Village at Nombinnie, New South Wales Government Gazette (Sydney), 17 November 1884, page 7736. The proposed townsite of Nombinnie was located south of the established Mount Hope township. Most references to the name Nombinnie are found in official government publications or newspapers quoting government sources. To residents the township remained known as Mount Hope. By May 1888 none of the surveyed allotments had been sold “and only the surveyor’s pegs and ditches remain to mark the site”.The Mount Hope District, N.S.W., Australian Town and Country Journal (Sydney), 12 May 1888, page 24. In November 1901 it was reported that there “about a score of new dwellings” in the surveyed township “and others are in process of erection”.Hillston to Mount Hope, via Euabalong and Lake Cudgellico, Hillston Spectator and Lachlan River Advertiser, 9 November 1901, page 8.
Copper prices declined during the mid-1880s and the “unprecedented depression in the copper market” adversely affected the balance sheets of the Mount Hope mining companies.Mining News: The Copper Industry, Evening News (Sydney), 31 July 1885, page 6. In late 1885 and early 1886 both the Great Central and the New Mount Hope mines were closed down “in consequence of the low price of copper, and the expense of carting the ore to the port”. Both mines remained closed for two years.