Hammill, Avoca

When picking up old bricks around the place, context is everything.  Most are not stamped with a maker and where a hand made brick is found can be the only way to reasonably determine a maker.  Such is the case with this one.  I found it in a hotel car park in Avoca recently.  People don't value individual bricks as part of their heritage so they can be found just lying around, or dumped in skips.  The only person that I know of who was making this type of brick in this town was John Hammill.

John Hammill (1832 – 1899) arrived in Victoria in November 1852 with his family aboard the ship “Nuggett”; an appropriate name for potential gold diggers.  John however went into brick making, a profession he practiced with his son, also named John, for many years.  He was active from at least 1855 when he is remembered as doing the brick and stone-work for the Avoca Hotel where around 100,000 bricks were used.  From the look of buildings around town, he made both red and cream bricks. 

Chances are that they also made the bricks for the Post Office, Victoria Hotel, Albion Hotel (now closed), the former Hollands Drapery Shop, the former Bank of Victoria building, the Police Residence, the Uniting Church Complex, the Presbyterian Church Complex, the Powder Magazine, the Newsagency, the Pyrenees Cellar building, the former National Schools building and Lalor’s Pharmacy, as well as numerous homes and brick chimneys on timber homes.  Distinctive features of some of Hammil’s work appears to be the use of corbelled brickwork and dark headers.

Selkirk, Allendale

Today, Allendale (approximately 25 km north of Ballarat) is a far cry from its peak back in the days of the gold rush of the 1850’s.  Once a thriving service centre for the mining industry, the scattered remnants tell us little of the past. In fact, once Allendale was four adjoining towns in one; Allendale, Wallace Town, Ryans Town and Ristori Town, named after Adelaide Ristori (1822-1906) a famous Italian actress in her day.  She toured Australia in 1875.  Now the demarcation between the towns, and most of the towns themselves, are long gone.  Once a thriving settlement of over 1500 people, the town boasted a variety of facilities needed to maintain a thriving and profitable mining industry.  Allendale is now greatly reduced, but back in the day, it was a centre for gold miners, having six hotels, a museum and their own fire brigade.  

Into this community came Robert Selkirk.  Born in Fife, Scotland in 1819, he migrated to Victoria in 1854 with his family, including Robert Selkirk II who was also born in Fife, in 1841. Robert Jnr worked as a stonemason for years before making bricks in 1883 by hand at Allendale, just outside Ballarat.  RS2 gave up stonemasonry for timber splitting and moved to Cherry-Tree Flat near Ross Creek.  Later, in 1883 on his return to Allendale, he took up brick laying, but saw the demand for bricks in the growing town.  He had discovered suitable clay deposits behind his house in Allendale and by 1892, he had given up bricklaying and was a full-time Brickmaker.  He and one other worker built a drying shed, a clamp and wooden moulds and began production.  Robert eventually owned three properties around Allendale, two used for brick making and one for his home in Elizabeth Street with the works nearby.  Eventually, he employed ten workers who also made roof tiles and drainage pipes.  

He first made bricks from clay in a field in Ristori Town.  This was dug from the banks of mullock heap left at the Ristori mine in the De Murza paddock.  The clamp could produce up to 6,000 bricks per week.  These bricks were too soft after firing so he moved extraction to a new location.  Even though he considered these bricks too soft, they have lasted over a century.  He then made bricks from clay behind his house in Elizabeth Street.  By 1892, Robert moved to new premises around the corner in Garfield Street Allendale and had mechanised production through two scotch kilns.  Known as “Selkirks Brick Tile and Pipe Works”,

By 1887, bricks were being sent by rail to several destinations.  The delivery waggon, still catered to the local market.  By 1900, mining in Allendale was in rapid decline but Robert still had enough money to purchase land in Howitt Street in Ballarat.  Robert had seen the clay on the hillside there during his delivery trips.  He purchased 10 acres of land known as “Heinz’s Paddock” and the business relocated there in March 1900.  Robert offered the old clay pit to the local Creswick Shire Council to use as a rubbish dump, but they declined because it was too close to the town.  It is still there today. 

He built a Hoffman kiln in Ballarat from the last of his bricks made at Allendale.  It took over 400,000 bricks to make it and it had a capacity of 6.000.000 bricks per year.  Distribution through the nearby railway enabled the company to grow.

Today, Selkirk’s make 50,000,000 bricks each year, as well as other clay products and I believe that only one Selkirk remains with the company.  But this story is about the brick works in Allendale.  Even though he made thousands of bricks there, today, only two buildings remain that were made from his original bricks.  An old bakery, next to the nursery was made from his later Allendale bricks, and a kitchen with a chimney at the back of a weatherboard house is the only building made from the first works.  His bricks are scattered everywhere though.  Little piles in people’s gardens, garden edging and the occasional driveway are all that’s left.  This one was given to me by Ben, a long time resident, who also gave me some of this information.

Junction Brick Company

Trading Name	Oakleigh Brick Company also known as the "Oakleigh Brick and Tile Company" and the “Junction Brick Company”
Years of Operation	1909 to 1921
Company Number	C0000832T
Address	Ferntree Gully Road to the North, Dandenong Road to the South and Tanner Street to the East.
Council Lot No.
Coordinates	-37.896937, 145.100598
Current Use	Public Open Space (Hurst Park)

 

Also advertised in the Sands and Macdougall Directory of 1911 and 1912 as the Junction Steam Brick Co. (J.Hendy) Real High Grade Steam Bricks. Oakleigh; and 1915 as the Junction Brick Co. Pty Ltd. Dandenong Rd. Oak.  They appear to have had two incarnations, one as a brick works and the second as a roofing tile maker.

This was another of the small, short-lived companies in Oakleigh.  They were located on that small triangle of land now serving as parkland (Hurst Park) on the corner of Dandenong and Fern Tree Gully Roads.  Even though they called themselves a company, there is no record of them registering as a company in Victoria.  A sole trader making bricks is not an easy life and there is no further mention of this brick works.    

  

This triangle of land was part of the original Oakleigh East sub-division.  On the 27th of March 1890 the land was purchased by Clara Eliza Collins.   Ida Segemeier inherited this block when Clara died on the 29th of January 1902.  Ida sold it almost immediately to Ellen Matilda Green on the 17th of June 1902.  She then sold it to Joseph Murray, 3rd of March 1906.  

This is where brick making enters the picture.  The block was sub-divided and sold to Frank Oliver Harford on the 15th of June 1909, and the other block to John Hendy on the 24th of November 1909.  Both men were builders.  John bought out Frank on the 24th of November 1909 and consolidated the blocks where they then began brick making.  This did not last long because the land was again sold, this time to Frederick Oscar Bornum. Peter Finlayson and John Lemmon on the 2nd of June 1910, shortly after Frank and John's partnership dissolved. 

They couldn't make a go of it either and sold to Fritz Ernest Frankenberg on the 22nd of March 1912.  This is where the business went belly up with the plant and equipment being sold off., ownership was also short-lived and Fritz sold to Richard Arthur Ethell (another of Thomas's sons) the transfer happened on the 29th of October 1914.  The company is now listed in Sands and MacDougall under "Tile Makers."

Richard later sold to Harold Frank Hunt on the 23rd of December 1919.  (Harold dropped off the perch a couple of years after he sold off the works.) 

This next bit is where it could get confusing because Harold Hunt sold to the Terracotta Roofing Tile Company on the 24th of March 1921.  I suspect he saw a chance to offload what these days would be seen as an under performing asset but Harold was also a shareholder in the Terracotta Roofing Tile Company.  I think Harold probably did better out of the deal.  

For some time after the Junction Brickworks closed, their boiler was kept lit in the hope that the business would resume.  It was not still going in 1921.  This resumption of works did not happen and even when the Terracotta Company took over, sales never matched production   and the site eventually lay idle, becoming a dangerous eyesore and health hazard.  They owned the land until the 18th of August 1939 when it was acquired by Ernest Henry Montague Ratcliff (1863-1938).  Ernest was also a Director of the nearby Glen Iris Brick Company.

  

The property had lain idle since the closure of the Terra Cotta Roofing Tile Company (see separate post) The vacant site became a dumping ground and quickly became a health hazard.  Whatever plans Ernest may have had for the site, they never came to fruition and the Council took legal action against Ernest to clean up the site.

The partnership of J.Hendy, F.Harford and B.Rapley dissolved in 1910.  It is noted that the witness to this agreement was William Ethell. 

 According to the Oakleigh Council records, in July 1927, Council decided they needed a new site for a tip.  Cr Andrews moved that a hole on Dandenong Road be used, but Councilors threatened to resign if this was done.  In 1928 The East Oakleigh League wrote to the Council drawing attention to the unsightly condition of the defunct tile works on the corner of Dandenong and Fern Tree Gully Roads.  They suggested that Council purchase the property and make it into gardens.  The owners wanted £5,000.  Council said that they would pay only £2,500 for it – but no money was available.

Junction Brick Works Site 1931 Aerial photograph courtesy of the Department of Environment and Primary Industries, Victoria On the 17th of April 1929 the owners of the disused tile works at the corner of Dandenong and Fern Tree Gully Roads were given 14 days to erect a substantial fence around the clay hole.  I don’t think that this referred to the corner site.  If you look at the right of the picture, the remains of Scott’s pit can be seen encroaching onto Dandenong Road.  There is a reference to this company being started by the Moroney Brothers but there appears to be no evidence of this.  The carefully manicured parkland there now shows no sign of its former life.