The Big Picture

Measuring a little over one metre tall this photographic portrait is of Charles Rasp (1846-1907), the man credited with finding silver at Broken Hill and establishing the now British-owned mining company BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary Company) in 1885. For decades the settler population at Broken Hill has celebrated Rasp as the city’s ‘founding father’, including […]

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Ground-breaking Australian Design

Designed by renowned colonial silversmith Henry Steiner (1835-1914), The Silver Tree epergne stands at more than half a metre high, features twenty figures on its base and has an illustrious history. It got tongues wagging at the Melbourne International Exhibition of 1880–81 and cemented Steiner’s place in Australian design history. Possibly lured by the gold […]

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Discoverer of Rare Mineral Murdered

gray/black rock with yellow gemstones poking out in various places

Raspite is recognised as a form of the lead tungstate mineral Stolzite and was named after the boundary rider and prospector, Charles Rasp, by the Natural History Museum in Vienna. Rasp’s 1883 claim on the Mount Gipps Station in New South Wales’ far west led to the founding of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP). […]

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The Boundary Rider Who Founded BHP

Born Germany in 1846, Charles Rasp (1846-1907) arrived in Melbourne in 1869. Although his early years in Australia were spent as an itinerant agricultural worker he went on to become one of the founders of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP) and ended his days a very wealthy man. After a few years working on […]

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A Canny Risk

In 1883 Scottish migrant George McCulloch (1848-1907) took a risk on a rocky field on the Mount Gipps sheep station he managed. The risk paid off and within a few years he had founded the Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP). George left Broken Hill soon after he made his fortune, but he never forgot his […]

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