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.

Saturday, July 4, 2015

William Axtell

Name

William Axtell
Address
Carngham
Occupation
Cowkeeper, Brickmaker, Miner
Born
St Pancras, London, 1817
Parents
John Axtell and Catherine (Humphries)
Died
Beaufort, Victoria, 13th July 1894
Burial
Beaufort, Victoria, 15th July 1894
Occupation
Brickmaker
Period Active
1862-?
Married
Geelong, Victoria, to Ellenor Purcell 1835-1931


Children
Catherine b 1853
Mary Jane Elizabeth 1855-1941
Maria 1859-1863
Mary Elizabeth 1863?
William Thomas 1864-1955
Emily Mary 1867-1955
Robert John 1869
Sarah Ann 1862
Ellen Therese 1873 1944
Jewell Victoria 1874-1953
Johann 1877-1879
Arrived
Melbourne, 1852 as unassisted migrant aboard the “Beulah”

Little is known of their movements for the next ten years, and it may be assumed that, like many others, he was a not too successful gold miner in the nearby fields in or near Ballarat.  They were living in Cargham, near Ballarat when, in 1862, William received permission to commence brick making.  Carngham is 27 kilometres west of Ballarat and about 30 kilometers from Buninyong.  The name Carngham is said to derive from the Wathawurrung people's word for house or hut.  In 1838 James and Thomas Baillie squatted there and adopted the Aboriginal place name for their property. The local clan was the Karrungum baluk or Carringum balug.

According to the census of 29 March 1857 there were 459 people in Carngham, 292 males and 167 females. This figure probably includes the population of Snake Valley. Until that time, the area had been farmland owned by In 1854 there had been 58 people, 15 males and 13 females.  Carngham is 4 km north of Snake Valley and was a mining township, surveyed and proclaimed in 1855.  State School number 146 operated at Carngham from 1856 until 1911.  Today Carngham is little more than a few houses where the Snake Valley-Trawalla road crosses the road from Ballarat to Beaufort.  Snake Valley is still the larger settlement. Overlooking Carngham is the old cemetery but William isn’t there.  William died on the 13th of July 1894 at the age of 72 in the nearby town of Beaufort and was buried there two days later on the 15th of July 1894.
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