Mount Morgan
Located on the Dee River, thirty-three kilometres south-southwest of Rockhampton and ninety kilometres west-northwest of Gladstone on Gangulu country, the former mining town of Mount Morgan takes its name from the three Morgan brothers — Frederick Augustus, Thomas Squire and Edwin Francis Morgan — who combined with local business identities to form the syndicate that took out mining leases in the area in 1882.
Although traces of gold had been found earlier on the Calliungal pastoral run — taken up by the Leith Hay family in the 1850s — the Morgan brothers took ore specimens from the rocky hill, which delivered spectacular assay results. The mine that developed on the syndicate's claim yielded 225,000 kilograms of gold, 50,000 kilograms of silver and 360,000 tons of copper over its ninety-nine years of operation. The Mount Morgan company finally ceased operations on 31 December 1992.
The capital that William Knox D'Arcy raised from his share of the Mount Morgan operation funded the oil exploration in Iran, which led to the formation of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, which eventually became British Petroleum (BP). The Morgans had sold their share in the syndicate in 1884.
