John Moffat (mining pioneer)

John Moffat (1841–1918) was a Scottish-born entrepreneur who developed a mining and industrial empire around Loudoun Mill and Irvinebank in North Queensland which drove the development of north-eastern Australia. He was a devout Swedenborgian who was famous for both vision and enterprise. He was born in Newmilns (New Mills), Ayrshire and spent most of his youth immersed in books. Extremely shy in temperament, he was known to hide whenever visitors approached. It was a habit he was to retain throughout his life.

After learning bookkeeping and working as a clerk in Newmilns and Glasgow, he emigrated to Australia, where he worked as a shepherd on a remote outback station west of Brisbane. He was known to carry a large swag of books and stuffed his saddle-bags with philosophy, theology, engineering and science books. He frugally saved his pennies and entered into business with Brisbane storekeeper, Robert Love. A lot of custom started coming from the tin-fields of Stanthorpe. Moffat started a branch of the business on the tin fields where he traded goods for tin and used his intelligence and savings to invest in the best prospects on the field.

Moffat invested the profits of his educated speculations on building a smelter, so the ore could be processed on the field and profits retained. A prosperous community grew around these achievements. In 1879, Moffat sent two of his agents, William Jack and John Newell to survey the wild frontier of north Queensland on the Atherton Tablelands, west of Port Douglas.

The area was known to have abundant resources of tin on what became known as the Tinaroo field, site of today's Lake Tinaroo. While prospecting there, Jack and Newell met John Atherton, an early settler knew that the first European explorer in that region, James Venture Mulligan had noticed rich deposits of tin ore on the Wild River, higher up in the 'wild ranges' in 1875. Atherton led Jack and Newell on an exploratory expedition to the area in 1879 but the party failed to find the rich alluvial deposits that had been noted by Mulligan. In 1880, a second expedition located the deposit and secured a claim for Moffat and Company. The town of Herberton was officially laid out in August of that year.

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