Kapunda (Kapunda)
Kapunda is a town on the Light River and near the Barossa Valley in South Australia. It was established after a discovery in 1842 of significant copper deposits. The population was 2,917 at the 2016 Australian census.
The southern entrance to the town has been dominated since 1988 by the 8 m statue of Map Kernow ("the son of Cornwall"), a traditional Cornish miner. The statue was destroyed by a fire in June 2006 but was rebuilt.
Francis Dutton and Charles Bagot, who both ran sheep in the area, discovered copper ore outcrops in 1842. They purchased 80 acre around the outcrop, beginning mining early in 1844 after good assay results. Mining began with the removal of surface ore and had progressed to underground mining by the end of the year. Copper was mined until 1879. There are also quarries near the town which provide fine marble ranging from dark blue to white. Marble from the Kapunda quarries was used to face Parliament House in Adelaide, and the pedestal of the statue of Venus on North Terrace, Adelaide is made of Sicilian and Kapunda marble.
Ore was initially exported to Swansea, Wales, but later Welsh smelters migrated to South Australia and the ore was smelted locally by 1851. Typically, the miners were Cornish, labourers were Irish and smelter specialists were Welsh. Trade and agriculture were Scottish and English. German farmers and timber cutters at nearby Bethel had already been in the area. Underground mining became more difficult as the mines reached deeper. A steam engine to drive a water pump was installed in 1847, replaced by a larger one in 1851. Mining operations ground to a halt in 1851 with the impact of the Victorian gold rush, restarted in 1855. In 1865, the mine was leased to a Scottish company which switched to open-cut mining methods and replaced the smelters with a different treatment method (cooking the ore with salt to produce copper chloride). Copper prices fell in 1877 and the mine closed in 1879.
A railway from Adelaide was opened in 1860, and extended to Eudunda and Morgan in 1878.
The Corporate Town of Kapunda was established in 1865 to form a local governing body for the township and the District Council of Kapunda was established the following year to govern the surrounds.
The Baptist Church building was constructed in 1866.
Kapunda is known for being the home of Sir Sidney Kidman (1859–1935). He was a major cattle pastoralist who at one time owned 68 properties with a total area larger than the British Isles. He held annual horse sales at Kapunda with up to 3,000 horses sold during the week. His house, Eringa, was donated to the Education Department in 1921, and it was used as the administration building for the Kapunda High School until it was gutted by fire on the night of 29 March 2022.
Kapunda was home to several notable manufacturers of farm and mining machinery: Robert Cameron, Joseph Mellors, James Rowe and Adamson Brothers. It was with this last-named company that T. J. Richards, the founder of one of Australia's largest coach-building firms, started his career. H. B. Hawke and Co., began in 1857 and operated under various names. The firm closed in 1983.
Kapunda had a strong Catholic community and Saint Mary MacKillop visited and established a convent there. St John's Reformatory for Girls operated from 1897 to 1909.
The southern entrance to the town has been dominated since 1988 by the 8 m statue of Map Kernow ("the son of Cornwall"), a traditional Cornish miner. The statue was destroyed by a fire in June 2006 but was rebuilt.
Francis Dutton and Charles Bagot, who both ran sheep in the area, discovered copper ore outcrops in 1842. They purchased 80 acre around the outcrop, beginning mining early in 1844 after good assay results. Mining began with the removal of surface ore and had progressed to underground mining by the end of the year. Copper was mined until 1879. There are also quarries near the town which provide fine marble ranging from dark blue to white. Marble from the Kapunda quarries was used to face Parliament House in Adelaide, and the pedestal of the statue of Venus on North Terrace, Adelaide is made of Sicilian and Kapunda marble.
Ore was initially exported to Swansea, Wales, but later Welsh smelters migrated to South Australia and the ore was smelted locally by 1851. Typically, the miners were Cornish, labourers were Irish and smelter specialists were Welsh. Trade and agriculture were Scottish and English. German farmers and timber cutters at nearby Bethel had already been in the area. Underground mining became more difficult as the mines reached deeper. A steam engine to drive a water pump was installed in 1847, replaced by a larger one in 1851. Mining operations ground to a halt in 1851 with the impact of the Victorian gold rush, restarted in 1855. In 1865, the mine was leased to a Scottish company which switched to open-cut mining methods and replaced the smelters with a different treatment method (cooking the ore with salt to produce copper chloride). Copper prices fell in 1877 and the mine closed in 1879.
A railway from Adelaide was opened in 1860, and extended to Eudunda and Morgan in 1878.
The Corporate Town of Kapunda was established in 1865 to form a local governing body for the township and the District Council of Kapunda was established the following year to govern the surrounds.
The Baptist Church building was constructed in 1866.
Kapunda is known for being the home of Sir Sidney Kidman (1859–1935). He was a major cattle pastoralist who at one time owned 68 properties with a total area larger than the British Isles. He held annual horse sales at Kapunda with up to 3,000 horses sold during the week. His house, Eringa, was donated to the Education Department in 1921, and it was used as the administration building for the Kapunda High School until it was gutted by fire on the night of 29 March 2022.
Kapunda was home to several notable manufacturers of farm and mining machinery: Robert Cameron, Joseph Mellors, James Rowe and Adamson Brothers. It was with this last-named company that T. J. Richards, the founder of one of Australia's largest coach-building firms, started his career. H. B. Hawke and Co., began in 1857 and operated under various names. The firm closed in 1983.
Kapunda had a strong Catholic community and Saint Mary MacKillop visited and established a convent there. St John's Reformatory for Girls operated from 1897 to 1909.
Map - Kapunda (Kapunda)
Map
Country - Australia
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The ancestors of Aboriginal Australians began arriving from south east Asia approximately 65,000 years ago, during the last ice age. Arriving by sea, they settled the continent and had formed approximately 250 distinct language groups by the time of European settlement, maintaining some of the longest known continuing artistic and religious traditions in the world. Australia's written history commenced with the European maritime exploration of Australia. The Dutch navigator Willem Janszoon was the first known European to reach Australia, in 1606. In 1770, the British explorer James Cook mapped and claimed the east coast of Australia for Great Britain, and the First Fleet of British ships arrived at Sydney in 1788 to establish the penal colony of New South Wales. The European population grew in subsequent decades, and by the end of the 1850s gold rush, most of the continent had been explored by European settlers and an additional five self-governing British colonies established. Democratic parliaments were gradually established through the 19th century, culminating with a vote for the federation of the six colonies and foundation of the Commonwealth of Australia on 1 January 1901. Australia has since maintained a stable liberal democratic political system and wealthy market economy.
Currency / Language
| ISO | Currency | Symbol | Significant figures |
|---|---|---|---|
| AUD | Australian dollar | $ | 2 |
| ISO | Language |
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| EN | English language |