John Howell

John Howell (1833–1910), Canadian-born, naturalized-American mining engineer and mining industry figure, who worked in Australia from 1889. He was well known for his expertise in mining and smelting. The various ventures with which he was associated, in Australia, included, mines at Broken Hill, Dapto Smelting Works, Conrad mine, and several gold mines. Howell, New South Wales, is named after him.

Early life Howell was born in Canada and became an American citizen. An 1883 description of him, at around 50 years of age, as being "our old Nevada youth of sober, steady habits", suggests that he moved to Nevada as a relatively young man.

Howell was one of those who set up the company that built the Reno Smelting Mill and Reduction Works, about a mile from Reno, Nevada, on the Truckee River. It used his invention, a Howell chloridizing-furnace, as well as a ten-stamp mill, and a water-jacket furnace for smelting lead. It began operation around the end of 1886.

New Zealand During 1888, Howell moved to the North Island of New Zealand, where he managed the Te Aroha gold mine.

Australia

Broken Hill Instead of returning to America from New Zealand, Howell came to Broken Hill to be the general manager of the British Broken Hill mine, in 1889. While at that mine, Howell had erected an experimental furnace and successfully smelted sulphide ores.

From 1890 to 1895, Howell was the general manager of the Broken Hill Proprietary and Block 10 mines. It was Howell who successfully implemented W.R. Wilson's vision of open cut mining at the Proprietary mine, in an effort to reduce mining costs. Mining the open cut also reduced the weight of burden on the underground workings, which was carried by massive timbering. One of his otherwise salutary obituaries would opine that "as a manager he was a little on the weak side. He would rather side-step trouble than combat it, and probably that was why at the time of the 1892 strike he went away to Melbourne on business, and remained away till the worst of the trouble was over." Howell served as the mining companies' representative on a board of inquiry into the prevalence of lead poisoning in the silver-lead mines at Broken Hill, during 1892-93.

Other mines and smelters After he left Broken Hill, Howell was a director of various mining companies, including gold mines in Western Australia and the Overflow Mine at Bobadah. He was also retained by British-owned company, Howell's Consolidated Goldmines, to select and buy Australian gold mines for the company, one of which was the Prince of Wales mine, at Reno—named after Reno, Nevada, where Howell once had a smelter—near Gundagai. and acted as consultant engineer to the North Kalgurli Mine. In these ventures, he was associated with David Lindsay (1856 – 1922).

Howell was the first managing director of Smelting Company of Australia, which built, Dapto Smelting Works, a smelter at what is now Kanahooka, near Dapto, until May 1898. The smelter closed in March 1905, due in a significant part to the failure to construct the Illawarra Harbour port scheme—leaving the smelter entirely reliant upon rail transport—but also due to competition with other smelters for ore to treat and financial difficulties.

From 1896, he was mining advisor to another venture, Camden Exploration Company, formed after a reconstruction of the Camden Syndicate. The relationship between Howell and that company apparently soured; in 1899, Howell sued the company for damages for his alleged wrongful arrest under a writ of capias. Camden Exploration appears to have been a financial vehicle for the promotion of gold mining companies, one such—ultimately unsuccessful—mining venture was Mount Kimo Gold Mining and its mine near Gundagai.

In late 1899, Howell bought the site of the Clyde Smelting and Chlorination Works on a bank of Duck River at Clyde. It was reported that he planned to erect a large smelter there, but this apparently did not eventuate.

Conrad mine

Howell was known for his fascination with solving difficult metallurgical problems, and was an acknowledged expert in smelting of complex ores. He established and managed the Conrad mine, The ore deposit was a complex one, containing silver, lead, copper, tin, zinc and arsenic; although a rich deposit, its complex nature had defeated previous attempts to smelt the ore. The mining village that grew up near that mine was named Howell, after him. (1897—1976).

During the years of its initial operation, from 1898 to 1913, despite some changes in ownership, management of the Conrad mine largely remained in the hands of John Howell and his extended family. After John Howell became ill, during 1901, the mine was managed briefly by his son-in-law, George Blakemore, until Blakemore became the mine manager of the Great Cobar mine, later in the same year. Howell remained manager of the mine until at least the second half of 1903, when he succeeded in smelting stannite. Howell's other son-in-law, Brian Charles Besley, managed the mine, from at latest August 1904, up to the time that the mine closed.

Long after the Howell family's involvement, the Conrad mine was refurbished, from 1948. It briefly produced ore again, between 1955 and 1957. Howell and his wife left Australia, around 1904, to reside in Los Angeles. had two daughters, both born in America, Sarah Marion Howell (1870—1904) and Dura Maude Howell (1871—1957). Sarah Marion married Brian Charles Besley (1864—1949) and Dura Maude, known as Maude, married George Henry Blakemore (1868—1941).

Howell's son-in-law, George Blakemore, was the son of a mine manager and had worked first as an assayer and then managed furnace operations, at Broken Hill, before he married Dura Maude Howell. Thereafter, he worked in ventures associated with his father-in-law, until he became manager of the Great Cobar. Subsequently, he became an important mining industry figure, particularly in the region around Cobar. Howell's son-in-law, C.B. Besley, remarried in 1910, and afterwards had another two children. Unlike Blakemore, Besley did not have a mining-industry background. Before coming to manage the Conrad mine, he owned and lived at Mootwingee Station, north of Broken Hill, and was part owner and manager of a meatworks. After the Conrad mine closed, in 1913, he bought a rural property, at Graman, where he lived until 1929. He was living near Boneshaw when he died, in 1949, but was buried in Inverell cemetery.

Howell died at Denver, Colorado, on 12 November 1910, aged 77 years, having failed to regain his strength after surgery he had on 2 November 1910. A steam generator heated by smelter slag (with Edgar Arthur Ashcroft) Method of recovery of tin and other metals from stannite Improvements in the treatment of sulphate solutions of copper, iron, and zinc (with George Blakemore) Improvements in grinding and amalgamating pans