Elsmore is a rural village, with a population of 327 (2006), in

Gough County Gough County is one of the 141 Cadastral divisions of New South Wales. Gough County was named in honour of Field Marshal Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, ordinarily senior to the gener ...

on the

Northern Tablelands, New South Wales The Northern Tablelands, also known as the New England Tableland, is a plateau and a region of the Great Dividing Range in northern New South Wales, Australia. It includes the New England Range, the narrow highlands area of the New England regio ...

, Australia. The village is situated 10 km east of

Inverell, New South Wales Inverell is a large town in northern New South Wales, Australia, situated on the Macintyre River, close to the Queensland border. It is also the centre of Inverell Shire. Inverell is located on the Gwydir Highway on the western slopes of the ...

, just north of the Macintyre River and is within

Inverell Shire '' Inverell Shire is a local government area in the North West Slopes region of New South Wales, Australia adjacent to the Macintyre River and the Gwydir Highway. The Mayor of Inverell Shire Council is Cr. Paul Harmon, who is unaligned wit ...

History

Elsmore (also known as Ellmore and originally Glenmore) station of about was settled by John Campbell in 1838. The first official licensees of this run were Campbell & Muir in 1839. In 1843 the owners were Brown & Alcorn. The recorded stock numbers in 1850 were: 66 horses, 1,300 cattle and no sheep. Alexander Campbell of Inverell Station owned Elsmore in 1852. Around 1870 Joseph Wills, a shepherd, is believed to have been the first to find

tin Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn (from la, stannum) and atomic number 50. Tin is a silvery-coloured metal. Tin is soft enough to be cut with little force and a bar of tin can be bent by hand with little effort. When bent, t ...

in the

New England New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the Can ...

district. These heavy black grains that he found near Elsmore aroused his curiosity. Shortly after selling these to a traveller from Sydney a rush began to search the tin fields around here, Inverell and other nearby areas. The Elsmore mine was the first commercial

mine in Australia and has produced tin from various alluvial deposits intermittently since 1871. The adjacent Sheep Station Hill has seen only minor scale hard rock and alluvial mining. Elsmore Post Office opened on 1 February 1873 and closed in 1992. The main industries are mining and agriculture. The Bruderhof started a community known as Danthonia in Elsmore in 1999. They farm, produce signs and operate a publishing house.

References

*"Inverell Shire Information", c.1981 {{authority control Mining towns in New South Wales Towns in New England (New South Wales) Inverell Shire