Ernest Weinberg
WEINBERG, Ernest Ludwig Adolf, EM Leipzig MAusIME MIMM MAIME (1855-1925)
WEINBERG, ERNEST LUDWIG ADOLPH, mining and metallurgical engineer, was born in 1855 near Hanover and received his technical training at the University of Leipzig. In 1880 he left Europe to join a large mine management firm in San Francisco which controlled several important gold and silver properties in western North America. After several years working in and managing mines in Mexico and the USA for his principals, he became Smelter Manager for the Anaconda Copper Company at Butte, Montana, for three years. He then practised as a consulting mining engineer, inspecting many mines and building small smelters.
In 1889 Weinberg came to Australia as General Manager of the Queensland Smelting Co. Ltd which was building a smelter at Aldershot near Maryborough in central Queensland for the N.M. Rothschild interests of London. Metallurgical practice in Queensland was in its infancy, consisting primarily of stamp-milling followed by the amalgamation of gold ores and the smelting of copper ores in small, simple, open-hearth furnaces. Under Weinberg's expert management, Queensland Smelting provided the first local custom facility for buying and smelting ores, obviating the need for shipment to European plants. However, without a major captive supplier of copper or lead sulphides, the company had to purchase them from a variety of eastern Australian mines for smelting with the Queensland concentrates and ores which were being treated.
In 1898 Weinberg became Manager of the Australian Smelting Co. at Dapto near Port Kembla, New South Wales. Though Weinberg returned to Queensland on many occasions, his eminence as an outstanding metallurgical engineer is based on his period with Queensland Smelting. He visited many mines throughout the Colony, introduced treatment methods and made the small works at Aldershot a notable and viable enterprise. He spoke and wrote freely on mining and metallurgical practices, particularly advocating technical education and a central School of Mines.
In May 1901 Weinberg returned to Queensland as General Manager and Chief Metallurgist of Chillagoe Railway and Mines Limited in north Queensland. Copper smelters had been erected at Chillagoe but the next year was traumatic for Weinberg and the company. As a result of his assessment the ore reserves were reduced, and the smelters were closed because of a shortage of funds. Company reconstruction permitted a resumption of operations in late 1902, Weinberg resigning from management though continuing as a consultant and associating himself with several north Queensland ventures, particularly the Mount Molloy copper mine and smelter. Weinberg continued his Melbourne based consulting practice until he returned to the USA in 1919, where he established another consulting practice. He advised, or was on the boards of, mining companies in Queensland, New South Wales, Tasmania and New Caledonia. In Queensland his principal interests were the MacGregor, Mount Cuthbert and Mount Elliott copper mines, all in the Cloncurry district, and the Mungana lead mine, near Chillagoe.
Weinberg was a foundation member of the Australasian Institute of Mining Engineers and a member of both the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers and the Institution of Mining and Metallurgy. He revealed the breadth of his interests in his technical papers and did much to advance metallurgical practice in Queensland.
Ernest Weinberg married and had two daughters; he died in New York in April 1925.
References:
Eminent Queensland Engineers Vol 1 is available here.
Wide Bay and Burnett News, 17 October 1889;
V&P (LA Qld), 1897, pp. 423-7, 507;
G.E. Loyau, 'The History of Maryborough, Wide Bay and Burnett Districts• (Brisb, 1897); Q.G.M.J, Vol. 3 (1901), p. 192;
Trans. Inst. Min. Met., Vol. 37 (1927-8);
K.H. Kennedy (ed). 'Readings In North Queensland Mining History' Vol. 1 CT1vllle, 1980), and Vol. 2 CT1ville, 1982);
Biographical research by Mr D. Chaput, Los Angeles.
