William Knox Darcy

William Knox D'Arcy (11 October 1849 – 1 May 1917) was one of the principal founders of the oil and petrochemical industry in Persia (Iran). Concession to explore, obtain, and market oil, natural gas, asphalt, and ozokerite was given to him and the concession known as the D’Arcy Concession in Iran.

He was born in Newton Abbot, England, the son of a solicitor. He attended Westminster School until 1866 when the family emigrated to Australia, settling in Rockhampton, Queensland. D'Arcy continued his studies and chose to follow law, later joining his father's business. He did well and began to speculate, initially in land.

He married Elena Birkbeck of Rockhampton at St Patrick's Cathedral, Parramatta on 23 October 1872. Elena was born in Mexico in 1840, the only daughter of Damiana de Barre Valdez and Samual Birkbeck, a mining engineer from Illinois in the United States, who was in Mexico managing a silver mine. He was descended from the English Birkbecks, a Quaker family with an interest in education.

In 1882 he became a partner, with Walter Russell Hall and Thomas Skarratt Hall, in a syndicate with Thomas, Frederick and Edwin Morgan when they opened a mine on Ironstone Mountain (later renamed Mount Morgan), in Queensland, 24 miles (39 km) south of Rockhampton. There was a significant deposit at Mt Morgan. In October 1886, the syndicate became the Mount Morgan Gold Mining Company, with D'Arcy a director and the largest shareholder. He held 125,000 shares in his own name and 233,000 in trust. At one stage the shares reached £17/1s/- each, making them worth more than £6 million (an amount equivalent to £603 million in present-day terms). The company also worked a rich gold mine at Matakanui, Central Otago, New Zealand, through its subsidiary the Mount Morgan Sluicing Company.

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