Thornburgh House
| Thornburgh House | |
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Thornburgh House, 1997
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| Location | 57 - 59 King Street, Richmond, Charters Towers, Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia |
| Coordinates | 20°04′13″S 146°15′24″E / 20.0702°S 146.2568°ECoordinates: 20°04′13″S 146°15′24″E / 20.0702°S 146.2568°E |
| Design period | 1870s - 1890s (late 19th century) |
| Built | 1889 |
| Official name: Thornburgh House, Thornburgh, Thornburgh College | |
| Type | state heritage (built) |
| Designated | 21 October 1992 |
| Reference no. | 600405 |
| Significant period | 1890s (fabric) 1890s-1920s (historical) |
| Significant components | service wing, residential accommodation - main house, views to, cellar, basement / sub-floor, views from, rink - skating, dormitory, residential accommodation - servants' quarters |
 Location of Thornburgh House in Queensland
Location of Thornburgh House in Queensland
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Thornburgh House is a heritage-listed villa at 57 - 59 King Street, Richmond Hill, Charters Towers, Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built in 1889. It is also known as Thornburgh and Thornburgh College. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.
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.
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