Tin had been discovered in 1882 at Gibbs Camp, west of
Watsonville by a party of
Herberton prospectors. The best lode was the Great Southern assaying 60% tin. After persevering for further months without a crushing the miners were eager to sell their properties to capitalists prepared to erect machinery. The Gibbs Creek properties were purchased in October 1883 on behalf of the Glen Smelting Company for cash.
John Moffat, the major shareholder, was the mining entrepreneur at Herberton, and this purchase consolidated his investments and determined his future influence in
North Queensland tin mining. The Glen Smelting Company immediately commenced building smelters at Gibbs Creek which Moffat renamed Irvinebank after his birthplace in Scotland. The site chosen for the mill was on an evenly sloping tongue of land between Gibbs and McDonald's Creeks where a "log crate" or pig sty walled dam was constructed to provide water for the concentrating mill. Moffat purchased a five head battery lying idle at Thompson's Creek, away and re-erected it above the
Irvinebank Dam. Kerr believes that it was very likely the first Australian battery using a continuous flow system of concentration. There were six terraces on the hillside. One was fed automatically from the tramway hoppers to the stamps. Between the second and fifth floors were the jiggers and Cornish buddles slowly rotated by a diameter water wheel. Below were settling tanks and a driver. In February 1989 Moffat built a high-set house (
Loudoun House) for himself with an office underneath and a wide front verandah overlooking the dam. The battery and smelter commenced operations in December 1884 and was called the Loudoun mill, after Moffat's Scottish family. The mill was valued at and was managed by George McTavish, who had been a floor manager at the Tent Hill smelters and
Stanthorpe. In its first year of operation the Loudoun mill crushed of ore for a yield of of black tin which returned of metallic tin after smelting. The development of tin mining on the
Atherton Tablelands was controlled by the capacity of the Loudon mill and its crushing charges.
Extra five heads of stamps were added in 1886, 1893, 1899 and extra 10 heads in both 1901 and 1904 in conjunction with smelting expansion. Tin separation facilities were improved in 1888, 1893, 1900, 1902 and 1904 to compete with Stannary Hills. By then the value of the mill had risen to . Moffat gained a reputation for medieval technology and although
frue vanners were installed in 1890, he was slow to upgrade machinery. The skyline changed with an extra chimney in 1903 and more in 1905 and 1906. The Krupp
ball mill was replaced in 1908 (Kerr, 1992,3). L. C. Ball, Government Geologist, visited the treatment works in 1909 and described the processes. He noted the poor arrangement of the 40 head stamper battery and the high consumption of steam. He also noted that it was "the chief tin-mining centre of Queensland". At its peak this was the largest tin battery and smelter in Australia. It was reached by the narrow gauge
Stannary Hills tramway from Boonmoo siding on the
Chillagoe Railway. Moffat was involved in many other Tableland mines but the Irvinebank mines were his mainstays even though the
Vulcan Mine ore halved in value in 1907. He later developed the nearby Governor Norman mine, which yielded worth of tin between 1905 and 1914. Declining assays, falling tin prices and rising overdrafts led to the demise of the Irvinebank Mining Company; the
Queensland National Bank forced him to retire as a Director in 1912 in favour of J. S. Reid. The rationalisation program of his mines worsened industrial relations.
World War I dispersed the mining population and the collapse of the European market in 1914 forced the closure of the works. Reid liquidated the Irvinebank Mining Company in 1919 and
Queensland Premier Edward Theodore who, as a former miner, had formed the Amalgamated Workers Association in Irvinebank, bought the Loudoun Mill, tramway, aerial ropeways and various mines for as a State Enterprise on 25 October 1919. Suction gas replaced the ancient steam power plant. In 1929 the works were handed over to the Whitworth Finance and Mining Corporation Limited as a private enterprise. Its failure during the
Depression demoralised the local tin industry. The smelters were dismantled and the chimney stacks blown down. As ore supplies dwindled the Loudoun mill was barely a ghost of the Irvinebank Mining Company's glory. In May 1934, when Charles Edford became manager, the mill was substantially as it was in 1919. With Mines Department support he modernised it in 1935 installing Isbel vanners, a rod mill and additional circuits to extract tin concentrates after each stage of the crushing to reduce tin sliming. In 1951 Diester Overstrom tables were introduced after Alf Hooley, an experienced manager from
Kidston and
Chillagoe took over. Throughout the 1950s the State Government injected per year into the town for electricity, housing and additional milling plant. The stamps were finally abandoned in 1966 and today the mill operates with gyratory crushers, rod and ball mills, vibrating screens and
Wilfley tables. In 1981 the State Government announced the inevitable - the decision to transfer the treatment works, the last of the State Enterprises established by Premier Theodore. Since July 1983 the works been operated by the Hilla family. The Irvinebank State Treatment Works (Sale and Operation) Act 1990 sets out obligations and responsibilities for continuing operation of the works. == Description ==