Builders Brick and Tile Supply Co.

F.A. Harris started a pottery works at Clifton Hill in about 1872 winning awards at the Melbourne and Philadelphia Exhibition of 1875. Three years later he started a new steam powered plant in Raglan Street near Hotham Street, South Preston, which he called the Builders' Brick and Tile Supply Company. The products included flower and chimney pots, fire bricks and pressed white and red bricks. Housing for the workers was provided in Raglan St near the kilns. He initially prospered to the point he could build a substantial mansion 'Baruna' in 1892. However, he was ruined in the depression, his company went into liquidation and in 1895 and Barunah was seized by the Bank of N.S.W.

The brickworks site in South Preston was redeveloped for residential use in the 1930s, with the clay pit becoming Cochran Reserve.

State Brickworks Wonthaggi

In order to provide building materials for new construction, and experiment with coal mined at Wontaggi State Coal Mine, the State Brickworks was commenced in about 1909. However, the lack of local orders and the cost of cartage, the brickworks had financial difficulties and was sold off in 1914. this is despite the coal mines having been opened by the state government specifically to supply steam coal for ther locals, and the same government having control over railway cartage fees. State Brickworks bricks were stamped SCM, for the State Coal Mine which controlled it.

State Coal Mine brickworks (Andy Orr)

 

Chimney Specials

Special bricks were made for a number of purposes, such as plinths, chamfered corners, moulded widnow and door jams. Some of the more precise shapes were required for building circuar chimneys to fine tollerences, including curved and tapered bricks, sometimes with different arcs used fur chimneys which taper, tighter curves at the top and almost straight sided at the bottom. some tapered bricks might have been cut after pressing, but before firing, but many machine brickworks has a range of special moulds for the various shapes. The special curved and tapered chimney bricks appear to be a fairly late development, with earlier tapered bricks being hand-trimmed either before or after firing including the rubbed sandstocks of building arched lintels.

Curved chimney brick from Oakleigh Plaster works c 1946 (from David Beauchamp)

Tapered chimney brick 1946 (David Beauchamp)

Wire-cut, extruded, perforated bricks

3 hole perforated and 5 slot hollow

Most of the name bricks in Victoria are soft mud sand-stock moulded or semi-dry pressed. In each case a reverse of the frog, with the negative of the name impression, is screwed down to the bottom of the mould. The other main method of forming bricks is extrusion, where a screw forces the clay through a die.

While dry-pressed bricks were the norm in 19th and early 20th century Melbourne, extruded bricks, often involving repressing, were common in Sydney. Modern brickmakers are more likely to use extruders due to the speed of manufacture.
Such machines have been available since the earlier 19th century, and extruded bricks have featured holes through the body for as long. Problems with even burning slow drying and distorting of solid extruded bricks (which require a larger water volume in the clay) led to the use of dies which left holes in the finished brick. Three hole and ten hole bricks have been common in the past, but a diverse pattern of perforations have been employed.

However, perforated extruded bricks did not become common in Victoria until the second half of the twentieth century.

Darley Firebrick Co

 A brick works was established at Bacchus Marsh in 1893 by a partnership between Mr. Thomas Akers and William Wittick. In 1898 builder David Mitchell, joined the consortium to fund operations. The local clays were found to be suitable for high quality firebricks and so with additional money for expansion in 1902, the Darley Firebrick Company Pty. Ltd. was formed on the 9th of May, with David Mitchell the majority shareholder.

 

The  company changed its name to Darley Refractories Pty. Ltd. in 1982 after it purchased the South Yarra Firebrick Company, leaving Darley the only producer of firebricks in Victoria. Over 100 different shapes were made, including tongue and groove shapes for gas-tight seals.

Early Darley c1930s

Modern 1980s note code numbers

 

Ordish Fire Brick Co

The Ordish Fire Brick company was established in Dandenong by W. P. Ordish in about 1890. Ordish sold the business in 1922 and died in 1930, but the works appears to have continued production to about 1975, the company having merged with Newbold from Lithgow NSW in 1960.

As fire bricks were destined to be used for complex shapes such as kilns, flues, boiler settings, furnaces, etc, and they would weaken if cut or shaped after firing, they tended to be made in very diverse shapes such as arch voussoirs, key stones, chamfered edge, etc.

As fire bricks were a higher value product with less competition than normal bricks, they tended to be transported greater distances. Ordish bricks have been found in Tasmania.

Two Ordish firebricks - '26' denotes type

South Yarra Brick Co

The South Yarra Fire Brick Company was founded by Robert ‘Daddy’ Davies. It was the last of a number of brickworks to operate either side of Chapel Street near the Yarra river.  It appears to have been the successor to the Australian Gas Retort and Fire Brick Manufacturing Company Pty Ltd (sometimes stamped AR & FB Co.) established in 1869, and operated in Chapel Street South Yarra until the late 1930s, which manufactured fire clay goods, supplying to such companies as the Metropolitan Gas Co Ltd and Victorian Railways and Government.

 

The  South Yarra Fire Brick Co Pty Ltd operated in Chapel Street South Yarra from around 1940, manufacturing and selling a wide range of medium and high duty fireclay products and a range of refractory, airsetting and heatsetting cements, castables and mouldables.

South Yarra and Newbold (NSW) fire bricks

 

Standard house brick - assumed by the South Yarra Fire Brick co