Merton's Reward Gold Mine (Merton's Find; Mertondale 1), Mertondale Goldfield, Leonora Shire, Western Australia, Australiai

Regional Level Types
Merton's Reward Gold Mine (Merton's Find; Mertondale 1)	Mine
Mertondale Goldfield	Ore Field
Leonora Shire	Shire
Western Australia	State
Australia	Country

Merton's Reward Gold Mine is 35 kilometres north-east of Leonora, just east of the Leonora-Nambi road, where it turns from heading north-east to north if travelling from Leonora. The Mertondale Station homestead is just to the south. The three quarries mentioned below are still visible, just south of the Mertondale 2 and Mertondale 3-4 open pits.

Fred Merton discovered gold here on 04 March 1899, the mine to become one of the richest on the northern goldfields. At the time, there were two schools of thought about Fred Merton. A kind, generous man, prone to bouts of random philanthropy, or alternatively a controlling gun-totting miser, with some quirky hobbies.

One slanderous report states :"His suspicions almost amounted to insanity and his meanness was beyond the contempt of a miser. The place on top of the hill where he housed his miserable self is said to be riddled with bullets which he nightly fired at imaginary burglars'.

Fred Merton had arrived in Western Australia from Beechworth Victoria, in the 1890's seeking his fortune. He was one of many, most failed, but there was always the exceptions which kept the dream alive. Fred made a fortune from his gold mine at Merton's. He was initially instrumental in establishing several gold mines around Broad Arrow, before turning his prospecting attention to the area around Mt Malcolm.

In partnership with William Gallagher (or Callagher), he operated several shows around the Mt Malcolm area like the Australian Peer and Dearah. It was enough for food money only. Merton one day went looking for a missing horse, and followed the tracks to a low oblong shaped hill in the flats. Here he found several nuggets and traced them to an un-discovered gold reef.

There was apparently a gentlemans agreement between Gallagher and Merton, that if one found a new deposit, then it would be shared between them. Most sources state Merton failed to mention the find to Gallagher, and left the next day to register the find under his name, under the pretence he was going into town to buy food. One source from someone at the time who knew the men, states Merton offered a half share to Gallagher, who laughed it off, not believing it. Merton, who was irritated at the knock-back, left, and when Gallagher arrived at the new mine later, was told he was too late. Either way, it ended up in court, which Merton won.

Rather than immediately selling it to a company, Merton operated the mine himself, employing 30 men. Merton was mine manager, assayer, gold escort, engineer, accountant, only employing men to actually mine the ore. He was clearly a capable man, although subsequent owners were horrified to see large unsupported caverns underground, and a haphazard mining method.

Within the first two months he had raised 246 tonnes of ore for 1556 ounces of gold. The first crushing was sent to the Bummer Creek battery, and Merton slept in the battery for nine days during the crushing to ensure no-one stole his gold. By the end of the first 12 months the mine had produced 5000 tonnes of ore for 12 000 ounces of gold.

There were three open cuts developed. The top quarry had a shaft to 180 feet depth on a reef 6 feet thick. The main quarry had an incline shaft, and at 150 feet stone had been stoped back to the surface, the ore in this area being the largest and richest in the mine. The lowest quarry had the deepest shaft to 300 feet. A 20 head mill was erected, later expanded to 30 heads, although a lack of water saw only 15 heads ever being used at a time. The ability to be able to access much of the ore by open cuts into the hill made it very economical to mine. About 30 men were employed, one source stating he paid good wages, another stating when Merton went on a trip they were thrown off the mine, and had to fend for themselves.

At the end of 1901, Merton accepted an offer from Charles Kaufman of 10 000 pounds for the mine and one third share of the company to be formed to operate it. Merton tried to rescind the deal, but Kaufman refused. Kaufman then went to London to raise 300 000 pounds capital to develop the mine. The Rothschild family took up 40 000 pounds of shares but then received an independent report scathing of the mine, and withdrew, never to dabble in Western Australian gold mines again.

The Merton's Reward Gold Mining Company was formed, but first mine manager Fred Morgan from Lake View Consols mine at Kalgoorlie could not find a continuation of the main reef. Berwick Moreing and Co then found some more ore, before again running out. The mine was closed for a year before new mine manager J.H. Judd, was able to find another lode. The confusion lies in the haphazard early mining methods, where various portions of the lode were missed. By 1907, the company abandoned mining at the site. It was let to tributers for a couple of years before they to abandoned it.

It would appear Merton had got out most of the gold, and the sale price also left him a rich man. He had sold 60 000 of his shares, making a 85 000 pound profit. Merton was at the relatively young age of 34 when he discovered the deposit. There is a picture of him in typical prospector garb of white shirt and black vest, bearded, leaning casually on a pile of gold almost the same height as him, and holding a pistol. Merton liked sport shooting, in particular with live pigeons and quails. On top of the gold, is a small carved golden miner, Merton liking to carve images of men and horses from his gold, while waiting for the crushing to take place.

After leaving the mine, Merton entered the horse racing industry with some success, most notable winning the Caulfield Cup in 1910 with Flavinius and again in 1913 with Aurifier. Each Sunday morning in the city he was in, he would travel slowly around the streets in a car, throwing handfuls of coin out to children, 300 of whom would be following the car as it made its way slowly around. Merton left horse racing after his jockey, W.H. Smith, was involved in a fatal accident. He still attended the Melbourne Cup, in 1949, at 82 years of age it is reported to be travelling from Sydney to his 46th cup. He painted doll faces for the local children's hospital in his spare time.

There was limited mining at Merton's Reward between 1911-1915 and again 1941-42. In 1948, H.N. Wilson, treated the sands left behind by the mining till 1910. The mine has produced 88 991 tonnes of ore for 60 524 ounces of gold. Estimated reserves are 1.09 Mt at 2.7 g/t yielding 93 000 ounces of gold.

Historically two types of lodes were mined. Shear lodes consist of steep dipping bodies, under 1 metre thick, continuing 50 to 100 metres along strike, with gold grades up to 30 g/t. There are abundant quartz-carbonate veinlets parallel to the cleavage. Gold is associated with 5 -10% finely disseminated pyrite-arsenopyrite in a sheared and sericitised carbonated basalt.

The second type is intershear lodes, consisting of narrow, flat to moderately east to north-east dipping quartz veins, which contain most of the gold at the site. The veins reached a maximum thickness of 40 cms, in highly carbonated pyritic alteration selvages up to 12 metres thick. These vein selvages contain pyrite, arsenopyrite, ankerite, siderite, with gold in the central quartz veinlet grading up to 30 g/t, and 8 g/t in the surrounding area.

The lode are up to 40 metres along strike, truncated on the east and west sides by shears or shear lodes. Sometimes intershear lodes overprint shear lodes.

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