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In the 19th century the Kinta Valley was the number one tin producing valley in the world.<br/><br/>Kampar was founded in 1887, and lies within the Kinta Valley, an area once rich with tin reserves. It was a tin mining town which boomed during the height of the tin mining industry.<br/><br/>There were many tin mines on the outskirts of Kampar during the height of the mining boom. Most of them were established in the late 19th century, flourished in the 1900s, only to stagnate and decline after World War I, with the exception of an exhilarating boom in the 1920s. Most have closed down following the collapse of the industry, especially in the late 20th century.
MILES, EDWARD THOMAS (1849-1944), merchant seaman, politician and entrepreneur, was born on 24 June 1849 at Hobart Town, Tasmania.<br/><br/> A dapper man with a neat spade beard, Teddy Miles was quick and decisive in his business methods and not unprepared to bend the law to suit himself. His company soon absorbed its main rival, the Launceston & North-West Coast Steam Navigation Co., and in 1896 sold out at a profit to the Union Steamship Co. of New Zealand. In 1898 Miles moved to Strahan to manage his considerable property investments and that year became first master warden of the Strahan Marine Board.<br/><br/> in Siam (Thailand) Miles gained the Tongkah Harbour Concession Agreement for working tin deposits on Phuket Island, in return for which he constructed a deep-water dock and shipping channel. In 1906 he helped to float the Tongkah Harbour Tin Dredging Co. Ltd in Hobart and was appointed general manager. A bucket dredge, constructed in Scotland to Miles's design, was assembled at Penang, Malay Peninsula, in December 1907; then Miles took command of the steamer Padang, to tow the uninsured dredge 200 miles (322 km) across open sea to the work site. The enterprise, continued by Miles's sons, laid the foundation of the modern Thai tin-mining industry.<br/><br/> In 1909 Miles settled at Ringwood, Victoria, where he owned orchards and other property. He retired from the Tongkah Harbour Co. board in 1911 but was for many years managing director of companies operating at Ranong, Siam. An imposing monument to his tin-mining work was unveiled on Phuket Island in 1969.<br/><br/>
Phuket, formerly known as Thalang and, in Western sources, Junk Ceylon (a corruption of the Malay Tanjung Salang or 'Cape Salang'), is one of the southern provinces (changwat) of Thailand. Neighbouring provinces are Phang Nga and Krabi, but as Phuket is an island it has no land boundaries.<br/><br/> Phuket, which is approximately the size of Singapore, is Thailand’s largest island. The island is connected to mainland Thailand by two bridges. It is situated off the west coast of Thailand in the Andaman Sea. Phuket formerly derived its wealth from tin and rubber, and enjoyed a rich and colorful history. The island was on one of the major trading routes between India and China, and was frequently mentioned in foreign ship logs of Portuguese, French, Dutch and English traders. The region now derives much of its income from tourism.
The introduction of the first tin dredger in 1907 allowed the tin mining industry on Phuket to expand into a vast new area that had previously been untouched. Several types of dredges were used locally. Hydraulic dredges sucked the ocean floor for the alluvial deposits of tin through a pipe, separated the tin and discharged the spoil on the shore through a floating pipeline. Elevator dredges employed an endless chain of small buckets to scrape the ocean floor and separate the tin ore from the rest of the spoil, which was discarded back into the ocean. The coastline of Phuket and the surrounding ocean floor have been dramatically altered by dredging for tin.