Portrait of Essington Lewis

People/magnate, engineer

Essington Lewis

Essington Lewis (1881–1961), magnate, engineer, from Australia. Linked to iron ore.

The lucky break

Joined BHP in January 1904, starting underground at Broken Hill, and rose to General Manager in 1921 and Managing Director in 1926.1,2,3

Legacy

Expanded ore output at Iron Knob after BHP moved into steel at Newcastle in 1913. In May 1940 he became Director-General of Munitions, and after the war he backed the Whyalla steelworks and shipyards. He accepted the Companion of Honour in 1943.1,2,3

I AM WORK

Essington Lewis1

Story cards

Timeline

  1. 1885Broken Hill Proprietary Company formed4
Drag to turn the globe

Where next

Mines

Worked atBroken HillHe started underground at Broken Hill and ran BHP by 1926.1

Events

LedBroken Hill Proprietary Company formedThe man who steered BHP from Broken Hill to steel.1

Sources

  1. Essington Lewis History Trust of South Australia (SA History Hub)
  2. Wikidata item Q5399917
  3. File pages and licence metadata for portraits (via the Commons imageinfo/extmetadata API) Wikimedia Commons
  4. History of Broken Hill Broken Hill City Council

Pictures on this page: Essington Lewis 1945.jpg, not recorded on the file page (Public domain).

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Autonomous trucks by RobSimmons223311, CC BY-SA 4.0; Conveyors, rail and ports by Kabelleger / David Gubler, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pictures: Kirunavaara gruva, Kiruna., Fotograf okänd, / Europeana (Public Domain Mark 1.0).