Torbane, New South Wales

The area lies within the traditional lands of the Wiradjuri people.[2] There are Aboriginal heritage sites in the area.[3]

Torbane takes its name from Torbane Hill in Bathgate, Scotland, and shares a similar etymology with Torbanite, a type of oil shale that is found there. It was the mining of oil shale that first led to the establishment of the villages of Tobane and Airly. The area is dominated by two mountains, actually mesas, Mount Airly and Genowlan Mountain, that rise from the broad floor of the Capertee Valley. Between the two is the Airly Gap.[4][5] The mining was mainly on the eastern side of Airly Mountain, the western side of Airly Gap. The village of Torbane was on the western side of Airly Mountain, whereas the village of Airly was to its east. Airly and Mount Airly are supposed to have been named after Airlie Castle in Scotland.[5]

Prospectors found workable deposits of oil shale and took out leases on the eastern side of Mount Airly, but apparently lacked finance and the leases were cancelled.The first mining of oils shale began in 1883, when a German syndicate, The Genowlan Shale Company, took up the leases and began to send the highest grade shale to Germany, for enrichment of town gas. The village of Airly developed as a result.[5] The shale was hauled in drays to the railway at Capertee. Later a horse-drawn tramway and a rope-haulage rail track, over the southern end of Mount Airly, toward the railway line, was used.[5]

A second mine developed to the north, with a separate rope-haulage line over the northern end of Mount Airly to a retort site, near where the village of Torbane developed. This second mine became known as the 'New Hartley Mine', and retorts and other structures were erected in 1900. The crude oil produced in the retorts was railed to an existing shale oil refinery at Hartley Vale, for further processing by fractional distillation. The retorts required coal as fuel, and this was obtained from the Wongawilli coal seam, which also outcropped at Mount Airly. Later, a tunnel, cut into the coal seam and passing right through the mountain, was used to accommodate the rope-haulage tramway, replacing the steep route over the mountain. By 1908, the retorts were owned by the N.S.W. Shale and Oil Company.[5][6][7]

Both Mount Airly and Genowlan Mountain are capped in basalt, and under these caps are deep lead deposits that contained gold and diamonds, which have been mined on a small scale.[5]

There was a siding and railway station, on the Gwarbegar line, named Torbane, from which crude oil for refining and oil shale for export was dispatched. The siding opened in 1897, followed by the station (a platform and waiting shed), in 1900, which was enlarged in 1912. It closed in 1974. The station was located a little to the south of where the turn out for the rail loading loop of the Airly Mine is now.[8][9][10][11][12] From the siding, a steam-hauled standard-gauge private railway ran about three kilometres to the retorts site at Torbane.[5]

There was a post office there, known as Torbane Mines, between 1902 and 1920.[13] and a school, known as Torbane, between 1899 and 1920.[14] At the neighbouring village of Airly there was a school, from 1897, known as Genowlan, until 1910, then known as Airly, until it closed in 1920.[15] Airly had a post office of that name, from 1897 to 1920.[16]

In May 1896, a cave on Glenowlan Mountain was where a Spanish man, who spoke no English, John Terossa, better known as the notorious outlaw 'Slippery Jack', was captured by police. He had lived in the bush, for around two years, and survived by burgling and stealing food from farms. He was sentenced to five years for burglary.[17][18][19]

In 1913, by then operated by Commonwealth Oil Corporation Ltd, the oil shale works at Torbane was closed down,[20] probably due to the difficulties the company found itself facing at their newer and far larger site at Newnes. The Torbane retorts were reopened in 1916, before finally closing in 1918,[21] during the time that COC was under the management of John Fell. It is likely that this later operation was facilitated by government subsidies paid for local oil production in wartime. Another company, Torquay and Anglesea Oil Co. erected retorts and other structures there in 1925-1926,[22][23] but the proposed operation seems not to have started production. Around the same time, Commonwealth Oil Corporation removed firebricks from its old retorts, for use at the new oil refinery, at Clyde in Sydney, that was being built by John Fell.[24]