Thornburgh House is a two-storey brick villa constructed in 1890 for Charters Towers mining magnate
Edmund Harris Thornburgh Plant. It became a boarding school in 1919, a function which continues to the present day. Plant arrived in Australia, aged 17, in 1862 after living briefly in America. He initially worked on a rural property before turning to prospecting in the southern and central mining fields then moving to the newly discovered
Ravenswood field in 1869. He took out a mining lease on the productive Black Jack Reef and erected the first ore-crushing battery, the Vulcan Mill, in 1870. Soon after, Plant was amongst the first on the newly discovered Charters Towers field and erected the
Venus Mill in 1873. In addition to his successes in Charters Towers and Ravenswood, he also had interests in the
Hodgkinson and
Palmer fields and in
copper,
tin and
wolfram production in other northern mining areas. Plant made a major contribution to the development of mining in north Queensland. Charters Towers was a field of astonishing richness and at its peak accounted for more than a third of Queensland's entire
gold production as new technologies requiring corporate capital took over from the hand methods of individual miners and small syndicates. Plant not only owned crushing mills, but entered into public affairs in a wide range of areas; as a Member of the
Queensland Legislative Assembly and
Queensland Legislative Council, as Chairman of the
Dalrymple Shire Council and Divisional Board for nine consecutive years, and on a variety of boards ranging from the
Townsville Harbour Board to those responsible for the local water supply and hospital. In the year before construction on Thornburgh began, Plant and his family spent 12 months visiting England; a practice not uncommon for wealthy Australians who wished to collect ideas and furnishings for a projected residence. It is not surprising that when it was finished, Thornburgh was described by the
Northern Miner as "the handsomest and most convenient dwelling house in the North". The paper also noted with approval that apart from two
mantelpieces brought from England, most of the materials used in the building itself were made in
North Queensland. The two storeyed home, located on Plant's Ridge, was not only large, handsome and tastefully decorated, but incorporated some innovative ideas. These included an inner roof of Willesden paper intended to allow air drawn through mesh under the roof to circulate between it and the roof proper thus cooling the building. An unlimited supply of water piped through the house was provided by means of an elevated tank supplied by steam pump from the dam of the Bonnie Dundee Mine which Plant owned and which the house overlooked. Electricity was also supplied. The basement to the house contained, besides storage space, wine cellar and larder, a children's playroom with a concreted area for them to use as a skating rink. To the rear was a separate servants' section which contained a kitchen, servant's hall, three bedrooms and a bathroom. Plant also employed a large grounds staff and by 1919 when the house was sold, the extensive gardens and mature trees formed an oasis of greenery in the parched environment of Charters Towers and were an important part of the town landscape. Although gold production on the field peaked in 1899 at an impressive 337,000 ounces, it soon became clear that these grades did not continue at depth and by 1920 only one mine was still operational. People, businesses and even the more portable buildings, moved away from the town. Property prices fell and the availability of large redundant buildings in a town servicing a wide area and connected to major centres by rail suggested the possibility of schools to several churches. In 1918, as Plant approached retirement and was increasingly involved in his pastoral property near
Ingham, he put Thornburgh up for sale. Representatives of the
Methodist and
Presbyterian Churches had already met to consider establishing a college for
North Queensland students under the auspices of the two churches. They approached Plant about the purchase of Thornburgh, but the
Anglican Sisters in Townsville were also interested in the property and so an option was quickly secured by the Reverend Robert Bacon to purchase the house for £3,000 in November 1918. The newly formed school committee placed £50 as a holding deposit.
Thornburgh College, a school for boys, began classes on 16 June 1919 with John Frederick Ward, MA, of
Prince Alfred College,
Adelaide, as principal. The school was officially opened by Rev Dr Henry Youngman, President General of the Methodist Church of Australia, on 23 April 1920. By the Golden Jubilee Year in 1969, more than 2,500 boys had been educated at the college. A gift of £1000 from a Mr
William Robert Black and generous contributions from the public made it possible for Rev. Bacon to establish a girls' school in "Yelvertoft", the former home of Mr J Mitchell. The college was opened in 1920 and given the name of
Blackheath College as a tribute to Mr Black. Senior girls attended Thornburgh College until January 1921 when Blackheath Principal, Miss J. E. Bullow, began her illustrious eighteen-year career with the college. Blackheath was officially opened on 16 June 1921 by Rev J Cosh, Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Queensland. The two schools were run by a single College Council although they appear to have had separate administration and financial structures. Because Thornburgh was locally run, all funds had to be raised through the school and the community. A fundraising campaign was begun on 2 December 1918 by the College Council and secured £50,000 over the next twelve years. In 1919 the College Council was able to purchase the abandoned dam and tailings area below the house, which had been part of Plant's Bonnie Dundee Mill, and by 1922 had developed it into a sports field. In 1920, in order to provide additional dormitories and a new bathroom upstairs and a larger dining room downstairs, some modifications were made. These included extending the verandahs and enclosing the western verandah. In 1923 a new building containing a dining room and dormitory was constructed and the former Thornburgh dining room was converted to classrooms. Ownership of the school passed to the Presbyterian Assembly and Methodist Conference in 1932 during the
Depression when the local College Council found it difficult to keep the school running as student numbers fell. Matters began to improve with the appointment in 1939 of a new principal, T.R. McKenzie. To boost morale and raise the profile of the school in the community, he, his wife and the school staff carried out cleaning, repainting and minor improvements to the college during the 1939–1940 Christmas break. The school building itself was not requisitioned during the War for military use, though an American anti-aircraft battery, machine gun emplacements and communications systems were installed around the margins of the school ovals. The college experienced another slump during the 1960s and 70s. and the Presbyterian and Methodist Schools Association relinquished financial management of Thornburgh College to a Provisional Board of Governors. On the 5 September 1978 the Board of Governors of Blackheath and Thornburgh College was elected and final control of the college was passed to them on 31 December 1978. The school had become run down and a group of parents and friends undertook to repaint the house in this year. The grounds established by Plant continued to be cared for and enhanced by the college and during the 1940s emphasis was placed on developing the garden. Unfortunately, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, as the college expanded and new buildings were constructed, much of the original gardens were lost. As part of a rationalisation process, the campuses of Blackheath and Thornburgh were combined on the Thornburgh site between 1979 and 1982. A decision was made to demolish Thornburgh House, but was not implemented as it was found that the cost of new buildings would be greater than that of restoring the old. In 1985–1987 classrooms in Thornburgh House were repaired and by 1987 plans were in place to restore the house. During restoration, rooms were provided for past students, for archives and for the school governors. Areas were also set aside for teaching, displays and for the presentation of the performing arts. Work on the building was completed in 1995. == Description ==