Context

Historic context

Victoria has developed exponentially since European settlement. Originally timber huts housed a small but growing population. A legacy of the gold rush of the 1850s was an oversupply of underemployed miners. The extensive basalt plains of Victoria were a fertile ground for stonemasons who built the magnificent cities we see in Victoria today. These masons could not keep up with the demand as working basalt is a slow process. Brick makers then filled this gap and brick works popped up all over the colony as the population grew more affluent and wanted a better standard of housing.

This cultural and industrial heritage has largely been lost. The brick kilns are now gone. But the bricks remain. They are everywhere. Australia is now, as has been for a long time, the world’s largest per capita consumer of bricks. Nobody gives them a second thought. Many new arrivals in post-war Australia worked making bricks. Maybe one of your relatives was such a person. Almost nothing has been done in Victoria by the State Government to record this history, except a half-hearted attempt in the early 1980s by the Victoria State Archaeological Survey to record a few brick that came their way at a few sites. What ever became of them? Although some good came of it because a paper on “The Analysis of Bricks from Archaeological Sites in Australia; IAIN STUART” was produced. See it at http://www.jcis.net.au/data/23-04-Stuart.pdf


Even half the bricks we use today smash like China tea-pots if you drop them from any sort of height. Not like the old Victorian bricks. Oh no, they knew how to build houses in those days.

“Blue Collar”, P16, Danny King



What I want to do here is to show pictures of some of the bricks I have come across in my travels and give a short story about their maker. If you have anything to add, please let me know. PS: I do not collect bricks, only photographs of bricks. If you have some old bricks, let me know and I may come and photograph them and maybe find a story about them.

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

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.


 

































 
 


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 




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