Sons of Gwalia was a Western Australian mining company that mined gold, tantalum, spodumene, lithium and tin. It was Australia's third-largest gold producer and also controlled more than half the world's production of tantalum, before entering administration in August 2004 following a financial collapse. History First and second incarnations The original, Sons of Gwalia G. M. Co. was formed in 1897 by George William Hall, major investor William Pritchard Morgan and others to own and operate the Sons of Gwalia mine, which had been discovered in March 1896 by prospectors A. Glendinning, Jack Carlson and Frank White, who had named it after the Welsh homeland of the syndicate funder, Coolgardie storekeeper Thomas Tobias. The mine gave its name to the adjacent town of Gwalia. In May 1897, Herbert Hoover, manager and inspecting engineer of the London and Western Australian Exploration Company, an associate of the British management firm Bewick, Moreing & Co., inspected the Sons of Gwalia operation and recommended the acquisition of the mine. The London and West Australian Exploration Company acquired the Sons of Gwalia property on 17 November 1897, and Bewick Moreing & Co launched Sons of Gwalia, Limited on the London Stock Exchange in January 1898. Hoover was appointed superintendent of the Sons of Gwalia Mine and managed it from May to November 1898 before moving on to China. He was later to become 31st president of the United States (1929–1933). The mine operated continuously until 1963, when it closed and Sons of Gwalia, Limited was liquidated. Geology Gold mineralization occurred in the mine schist, which was up to 150 metres thick. Lenticular ore bodies occurred in this schist, with the eastern limb called the Main Lode dipping 45 degrees to the east, and the western limb called the West Lode dipping 38 degrees to the east, since the surface expression was horseshoe shaped plunging to the south at a 70-degree angle. The Mine schist is bracketed by a hanging wall of basalt and a foot wall of ultramafic rock. Pyrite was the most common of the sulfide minerals in the ore body. The Gwalia lode system was developed down to 1750 m. Third incarnation Sons of Gwalia NL was incorporated in August 1981. It issued its initial public prospectus in 1983 to raise $2.5 million on the Perth Stock Exchange (later the Australian Securities Exchange). In 1998, the company closed its Laverton Gold Mine, which