Nobles Nob Gold Mine, Tennant Creek, Barkly Region, Northern Territory, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Nobles Nob Gold Mine	Mine
Tennant Creek	Creek
Barkly Region	Region
Northern Territory	Territory
Australia	Country

The Nobles Nob gold mine when operating was considered to be the richest gold mine for its size in Australia. The mine is marked by an old open pit, and is 13 kilometres south-east of Tennant Creek.

John (commonly known as Jack, and sometimes Malachi) Noble was a cattleman in northern Australia who had heard rumours of gold near the Tennant Creek telegraph station. He arrived and started prospecting in 1931. Meanwhile William Weaber (some sources Weber) sold his 12,000 head of cattle in the Kimberley and joined Noble in 1933. Weaber was blind, caused when a horse kicked him 5 years earlier. Noble was a small wiry gaunt man, also blind in one eye. They are credited with discovering the Nobles Nob, Pinnacle, Rising Sun, Weaber's Find, Kimberley Kids, and Wheal Doria deposits, and are considered the founders of the Tennant Creek town.

Noble sold his share in the Nobles Nob lease 6 months later for 10,000 pounds, before it became apparent how fabulously rich the deposit was. Weabers daughter, Kathleen (16) was killed with three others, when her brother Owen Weaber's plane he was piloting nose-dived onto a beach at Yeppoon in 1937. The Weabers remained around Tennant Creek, his wife building a church in the town, and arranging Christmas celebrations, continued to this day.

Jack Noble's son called Jack Noble junior died in Cairns in 1940 after a short illness. After the sale of the leases, Jack Noble went to Townsville, but became homesick, ordering a taxi to take him back to Tennant Creek, a distance of several hundred kilometres. He purchased a hotel, but after 6 years was broke, and returned to prospecting, then panning gold for wages for mining companies. He died at the Tennant Creek hospital aged 78 in 1966.

Reginald Murray Williams (aka. R.M. Williams) took over the mine
after the war. He was a young saddle and boot manufacturer. The mine made him a rich man, enabling him to expand his business, purchasing vast areas for cattle stations, and later as a well known clothing retailer.

He appointed his uncle, Headley Mitchell as mine manager, who had occupied similar positions at Norseman Western Australia. Williams and friends targeted the Australian Development Company on the Adelaide stock exchange. It was a company doing little, with cheap shares, and they were able to purchase enough to gain control of the company and replace the board. A second hand 5 stamp battery was erected. The lease had been purchased from the Weabers, the sale price to be paid out of gold won, by the 17 October 1947. Gold was soon flowing, worth 250 million dollars, (in 1984 prices) according to the book Williams later wrote.

In 1949, a further 5 heads were added to the battery. To 1954, the mine had produced 81,886 tonnes of ore for 196,559 ounces of gold. A new ball mill and cyanide plant was added in 1952. By 1969 the mine had produced 455,863 tonnes of ore for 634,199 ounces of gold.

In 1967, a world authority on pillar extraction was commissioned to arrange the safe removal of pillars within the mine, which contained much gold. After heavy rains the ground subsided into the voids below, taking the battery with it. Monitoring equipment had predicted the collapse, and the mine had been evacuated, so there were no casualties. After some consternation, an open pit was developed, with much work along the way to prevent further subsidence of the open pit floor.

The mine closed in 1985, having exhausted all payable gold.

It was claimed some of the ore at Nobles Nob was so rich, that when hit with a hammer it would not fracture but flatten out like soft gold. The mine is on the southern limb of a west plunging anticline. The lode pitches east, gold found where mudstone intersects a shear zone. Country rock is sandstone, mudstone, greywacke and shale.

Originally two ironstone bodies outcropped. The western lenses 320 feet long, and eastern lense 80 feet long of quartz-hematite, with softer white patches of kaolinised mudstone. The main ore shoot between the 52-135 foot levels is in red brecciated mudstone, seriticised and impregnated with quartz-hematite stringers. Gold (some visible) is found as grains, flakes, and scales on fracture surfaces, with more disseminated gold in surrounding rocks. Gold distribution is sporadic, but with some incredibly rich patches.

In upper levels is soft greyish-white mudstone. The ore contains angular mudstone fragments, partly replaced with muscovite, bismutite, and hematite particles, with a high gold content.

Keith Murdoch was a promising All Black rugby union player, kicked off New Zealand's 1972-73 British tour after he beat a security guard senseless in Cardiff. Disillusioned, he dis-appeared into the Australian outback, working as a labourer, drifting between jobs at cattle stations and small towns.

Kumanjayi (known as Christopher) Limerick was a petty thief in Tennant Creek, said to have broken into many homes and businesses in the town. Walter 'Skimbo' Turnbull, security guard in October 2000 had caught him trying to break into a motel, and beat Limerick, breaking two of his fingers with a torch. Limerick etched obscenities into the paint work of Turnbull's car. The security guard was overheard vowing to kill Limerick. Meanwhile Murdoch caught Limerick breaking into his dilapidated demountable at Tennant Creek, he shared with Bob 'Fender' Bender. Murdoch beat Limerick again, but no-one intervened as fights were common in Tennant Creek.

Somehow Limerick found himself out at the old Nobles Nob mine, bloodied and dehydrated. His body was found three weeks later at the bottom of the open pit. Turnbull was well respected in town, and was dismissed as a possible culprit. Meanwhile Murdoch left town shortly after the body was discovered, and was traced to the Camfield Station elsewhere in the Northern Territory. He failed to appear at the first inquest. He appears at the second inquest, there was a scuffle with the media out the front of the court house, and he responded to most questions with ' I don't know'. Later police cleared him of any involvement, and the death remains a mystery.

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