George Klug
KLUG, George Charles ASASM MIMM MIMMAmer MAusIMM (1875-1935)
This biography was originally published in Westralian Founders of Twentieth Century Mining, compiled by Denis A Cumming and Richard G Hartley
Born in Ballarat, where his father managed a mine, Klug was educated at Ballarat Central School and the South Australian School of Mines from which he graduated in 1894 with an associateship in metallurgy. After working for G.A. Goyder, the State Government analyst, for several years he became a chemist with BHP at Broken Hill in 1896 and was appointed its chief chemist, assayer and assistant metallurgist in 1899. In the same year a new Kalgoorlie mining company, Golden Horseshoe Estates Co. Ltd (ECGF Boulder), was formed by Charles Kaufman (q.v.) to take over the assets of the former company, Golden Horse Shoe GMC. In 1900 Klug was appointed metallurgist for the new company.
Ore being worked by the Golden Horseshoe was still predominantly oxidised but some very rich sulphide ore was being developed in conjunction with less valuable sulphides. The company’s policy was to send the less valuable sulphides and concentrates to Fremantle for smelting and to build a small smelter at the mine to process the high grade sulpho telluride ore. The small smelting works which commenced operation in 1901 was the most advanced processing plant yet built on the Golden Mile. John Sutherland, the mine manager, appears to have been largely responsible for its design and Klug for its commissioning. Its three stages consisted of a water jacketed blast furnace, two cupellation furnaces as the second stage and a Miller’s chlorination plant as the third. In both 1901 and 1902 the smelter processed some extremely valuable ore. In 1901 26,643 oz of bullion were produced, averaging 237 dwt per ton and in the following year 23,299 oz bul. averaged 320 dwt per ton.
The first Fremantle smelting works was built at South Fremantle by the Western Australian Smelting Co Ltd, a company formed by George Brockman, the Kalgoorlie mine promoter. The works were managed by Walter Koehler from the end of 1898 until April 1900 when it was taken over by Fremantle Smelting Works Ltd, a company formed by Charles Kaufman. The new company was managed by Sutherland until early in 1901 when Klug took over its management. Smelting of Kalgoorlie ore was essentially an interim measure until the mines’ sulphide plants began to operate effectively but, from 1900, the Fremantle smelter had no shortage of customers. However, the smelting works, the three stages of which were similar to those of the smaller smelter at the Golden Horseshoe, had technical difficulties, in addition to liquidity problems, both of which forced the smelter to close down in July 1902 and the company to go into liquidation.
In 1903 Klug became the director of two mines in the Murchison Goldfield, Anchor Consolidated GMs (WA) at Tuckanarra (MGF Cue) and Windsor Consolidated (WA) GMs at Mt Magnet East. Both were only minor producers. Despite the fate of Kaufman’s Fremantle smelter company, another one, Fremantle Smelter Ltd, with which he was also associated, was formed in February 1903 to take over the assets of the previous company. Klug was appointed its general manager and he designed a new smelter for the same site which operated on different principles to the previous one. The smelter had several parallel production lines, each consisting of a reverberatory furnace followed by a Bessemer converter of the copper type and third stage of bullion refining. The smelter was one of the first on the Australian mainland to use this type of converter. It commenced operation in November 1903. In the thirteen months in which no smelting had been done at Fremantle, many of the Kalgoorlie mines had found alternative means of treating their sulpho telluride ore and the smelter turned increasingly to the smelting of copper and lead.
In March 1904 Bewick Moreing & Co. made an ill judged management agreement with the directors of the Golden Horseshoe mine which was conditional upon Bewick Moreing reducing the working costs of the mine by 40 per cent by the end of the year. However, Bewick Moreing had the full cooperation of neither John Sutherland, the manager, nor the London directors. Sutherland left Kalgoorlie for England in April 1904 to confer with the directors. On 17 September 1904 the agreement was abandoned, Sutherland was reinstated and Bewick Moreing was dismissed. As Sutherland did not return immediately, in October 1904 Klug was appointed acting manager of the Golden Horseshoe.
Meanwhile, Bewick Moreing was engaged in the controversial management take over of four companies controlled by the notorious market manipulator, Frank Gardner, of which the most significant was the Great Boulder Perseverance GMC mine (ECGF Boulder) which, in 1903, was the state’s largest gold producer and was the company which paid the highest dividend. As part of the take over Gardner’s manager, Ralph Nichols, joined Bewick Moreing but, after a controversial Royal Commission dealing with conflicting estimates of the mine’s reserves, by October 1904 Nichols had severed his connections with Bewick Moreing and, in January 1905, left for London to clear his name. Klug who was still acting manager of the Golden Horse shoe mine was then appointed acting manager of Great Boulder Perseverance. In February 1905 Nichols was reinstated as mine manager by a special meeting of shareholders but at the April 1905 AGM of the company it was announced that Nichols would not be returning to Kalgoorlie and that Klug would be taking his place.
In 1906 Kaufman appointed Klug manager of Phillips River Gold and Copper Co. Ltd, owner of the copper smelter which the Government had originally built (with Klug’s advice) just east of Ravensthorpe in the Phillips River Goldfield, 330 km south west of Kalgoorlie. The company also owned several newly developed copper gold mines in the district. In 1907 the copper price peaked and the company made its one and only profit. When an English director of the company, visiting the smelter in 1908, disagreed with Klug on company policy, Klug resigned and joined Bewick Moreing. He was appointed superintendent of the Great Fingall Consolidated Ltd mine at Day Dawn (MGF). Although the mine was past its annual peak production of 160 thousand fine ounces, which in 1905 had been the highest in the state, its output in 1908, of 82 thousand ounces, was still the fourth highest in Western Australia.
Klug moved to Melbourne in 1910 to become manager responsible for Bewick Moreing’s interests in the eastern states. In 1912 he was appointed general manager of the company’s operations throughout Australia, a position which he held for twenty three years. In those years he oversaw the globally significant development by the Zinc Corporation of the flotation process at Broken Hill and the growth of Bewick Moreing’s cooperation with the Collins House group in resource development. He was a director of the Zinc Corporation and of Electrolytic Zinc of Australasia, and also of Gold Mines of Australia Ltd. from 1930.
Klug died suddenly in England while representing the Australasian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy at the centenary celebrations of the Geological Survey of Great Britain. He was elected a member of the Institute in 1909. He was its President in 1922 and a member of its Council from 1927. The Institute established the Klug Memorial Award in his memory. He was also a member for some years of the Council of the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy (United Kingdom). In 1906, with A.E. Savage, he registered Commonwealth Patent 5578 for ‘improvements to converters’ which was renewed in 1913.
Klug's published papers on Western Australian topics include:
Patching cast iron water jackets JCMWA 6, 1907, p.769;
Method of stopping flow from a borehole JCMWA 6, 1907, p.20;
Electro magnet for removing particles from the eye, used at Great Fingall, JCMWA 6, 1907, p.355;
Slime treatment for the extraction of gold (Great Fingall) JCMWA 9, 1910, pp.169 73;
Grinding pan practice. Pipe discharge and classification of ground product' JCMWA 9, 1910, pp.169 73;
with E.H. Taylor (q.v.) The calculation of the relative efficiencies of crushing and grinding machines' [G.B. Perseverance] JCMWA Part 1, 4, 1905, pp.944 48; Part 2, 5, 1906, pp.93 97; Part 3, 5, 1906, pp.273 84.
References:
JCMWA 1902, 1903, 1905;
WAMBEJ 18 Apr 1903 p.14, 30 Apr 1904 p.21;
Skinner 1904;
John’s p.101;
MER Nov 1908, p.59;
WWA 1927 28 pp.141 42, 1935 p.274;
‘Obit’ ProcAusIMM 97, Mar 1935,Liv Lv;
L.Clark pp.3, 228;
Gibney/Smith 1, p.401;
ArcAusMM;
Patent Register of W.G. Manners
