Geraldton Brickworks Pty Ltd

ACN 008 685 836

Usually I write about brick works that have gone to God.  This time, I am submitting this post on a still operating brick works.  On a recent trip around Australia, I came across this company still producing custom bricks for the local market, although they also make bricks to match older style homes around Australia, often Sydney sandstock and export to Japan.

The works began when the three Calligaro brothers, Alceo and Adelmo arrived in Australia in 1936 and Adelio who arrived in Australia from Italy in 1939, began making bricks in Walkaway Road at Bootenal outside Grealdton in 1936. Geraldton Brickworks Pty Ltd acquired the business in 1961 and developed and extended the factory into one of the most versatile regional plants in Australia with markets throughout Western Australia and Japan.  They are the only clay brick and paving plant north of Perth in Western Australia. Currently the brickworks has a maximum capacity of 7 million bricks per annum. However Geraldton Brick is now the exclusive agent, north of Jurien Bay, for BGC’s new brick plant in Perth, which has a capacity of 120 million bricks per annum.

This has enabled Geraldton Brick to double its capacity by increasing its focus on speciality bricks at Geraldton and buying-in more standard bricks and pavers from BGC to service the north of Western Australia. Geraldton Brick has established markets in the Mid-West region of Western Australia. It has also established itself as a major supplier to the North-West Pilbara region’s expanding mining towns.

Geraldton Brickworks Pty Ltd employ around 30 members of staff, and achieved revenues of AU$5-10 million, of which export revenues have accounted for AU$500,000.

Geraldton is a thriving port city of 37,000 located 420 kilometres north of Perth. It is located on a spectacular stretch of coastline and is a 4 hour drive or 1 hour flight from Perth. It is the administrative centre of the Mid-West’s diverse industry base which includes fisheries, agriculture, iron ore production, manufacturing, construction and tourism.

Geraldton Brick owns Boutique Bricks WA that supplies premium specialty and match-up bricks for renovations and extensions to existing buildings throughout Australia.  They have been making and exporting standard and specialty bricks and pavers to regular customers in Japan since 1989.

Alceo Calligaro (8 April 1910 – 8 March 2003) from Buia in the province of Udine, north of Trieste in Italy arrived in Western Australia in 1928.  He left Naples by ship.   He had been a brickmaker in his homeland and brought a set of brick moulds with him to Australia.  He settled at Bootenal, in the Walkaway area near Geraldton and with his brothers Adelmo and Adelio, set up a brick works shortly afterwards.  Alceo was married to Maria, a dressmaker.  They had five children.

Adelmo later went to Bunbury where he and his brothers worked at the Waterloo Brickworks, 12 kilometres east of Bunbury, begun by Mr W.J. Buswell in the 19^th Century.  Now owned by Austral Bricks, it produces over 4 million bricks per annum.  Initially, bricks were made by hand and fired in a Clamp, or Scotch Kiln.  This early photograph of the works shows who are possible the brothers outside a Scotch Kiln.  Later, rectangular downdraught kilns were built.

They acquired and later closed the Dongara Brick Works.  This works had been started by Jack Morgan in September 1959 in Dalmage Street near the Irwin River.  The site still exists and you can see the remains of a large brick kiln, brick engine house and brick making machinery.

In the late 1970s, the Geraldton Brick company built a Hoffman Kiln to increase output.  This type of kiln is a continuous firing kiln capable of turning out millions of bricks per annum.  They take careful and continuous management to successfully fire the bricks.

Geraldton Bricks now use gas fired Batch Kilns.  Preferred because of their relatively quick firing time, these kilns are loaded and unloaded from one side. Fans placed on a deck above the green bricks blow the air between the brick stacks. The coal fire creates maximum heat transfer. Following the initial equalization of moisture content, the heat level is adapted as moisture content reduces. The moist air is evacuated through ducts on each side of the load, using the pressure difference or an exhaust-air fan.

The expansion and modernization of the brick works was considered in 2009.  An application for the winding up of Geraldton Brickworks Pty Ltd was commenced by the Deputy Commissioner of Taxation on 06/12/2012 and was heard in the Federal Court on the 29^th of January 2013, yet the company still exists, still making millions of bricks per year.

If you want to know more about this extraordinary business, I suggest you read the modestly titles “Birth of A Legend”, by Keith R Smith.  It places this Brick Works into the context of their current owners, the Geraldton Building Company. 

Dyke and Ridgeways Brick and Tile Manufacturers, Coolgardie

Later the “Coolgardie Pressed Brick Company” and later

The “Goldfields Brick and Tile Company.”

Dyke was Robert Dyke and Ridgeway was Thomas T Ridgeway.  They first appear in the Commercial Directory in 1898 and are yet another almost forgotten brick works yet they were responsible for almost all the bricks used to build both Coolgardie and Kalgoorlie in the early days of the gold rush.  Originally, it appears that most of their early output was hand-made, given the number of hand-made bricks in some of the older buildings in the area.  Later they produced pressed bricks.  In the early days, at their peak, they were turning out 350,000 bricks per month and employed around 30 men using the traditional “Scotch Kilns.”  Their works were located south of the Battery in Coolgardie.  Nothing now remains, unlike many of the gold workings, their pit has been filled in. 

In 1900, they planned to double capacity by duplicating their works at Coolgardie, or more precisely East Montana, and they planned to turn out 250,000 pressed bricks a week.  Large drying sheds were built, although to call them shed is to do them a disservice.  They were double storey brick buildings with three pitched rooves.  It appears that they still used scotch kilns to fire the bricks.

 

From the First-World-War onwards, Coolgardie began a gradual and consistent decline.  To help the war effort, iron from many buildings was collected for war needs.  Many of the older brick buildings in Coolgardie were demolished and the bricks said to have been crushed to get the last scraps of gold from the material used to make them.  It was found that this material assayed at 15 gm’s per ton.  Demolishing old, empty buildings was easier than digging.  One of the pits for the brickworks was within the line of gold-bearing material on the goldfields, so off to the crusher went the bricks.

The Coolgardie School of Mines, 

(Just one of the many buildings consigned to the crusher.
The site is still a vacant block)

In 1948, the Goldfields Brick and Tile Co Ltd” whose output was said to have been controlled by the State Housing Commission, (although this was denied) upgraded the works.  Their old steam engine was replaced by a diesel engine.  Contracted were let and completed for new foundations for the engine, grinding pan and brick press.  The brick press was purchased from the Metroplolitan Brick Company in Perth.  Contracts were let and completed for the building of a clay loft and bins.  Concrete work on the elevator and conveyor pit as well as tank stands was completed.

A conveyor and belting was purchased from South Kalgurli Limited.  Repairs and renovations on the grinding pan were completed.  It appears that there were two kilns operating.  At this stage, they were likely to have been Hoffman kilns, given their output of up to a million bricks per week.  

Site of Brickworks and Battery, Coolgardie. note the pits now filled and topped with water.