Darley Firebrick Company Pty Ltd

Firebricks, comparitively have never been produced in quantity in Victoria.  Only a few companies produced them.  Other than Darley, there were the Ordish Fire Brick Company in Dandenong, the Australian Gas Retort & Fire Brick Manufacturing Co of South Yarra and Hoffman Brick & Potteries in Northcote.

A firebrick is made to withstand high temperatures.  They are fired at a higher temperature than ordinary bricks and are used in areas where an ordinary brick would not endure, such as inside kilns and furnaces, potteries, foundaries and smelting furnaces.  They also have greater insulating properties.  They are also used where exposure to chemicals is also a factor.  

Darley is now a suburb about 2 miles (3.2km) north of Bacchus Marsh, now a feeder area for Melbourne.  In the early 1900s, it was well out into the country west of Melbourne and had been a stopping point on the way to Ballarat.  The area is geologically divers, having deposits of coal, as well as clay deposits, suitable for brick making.  First recorded brick makers there were Thomas Akers (1848-1928) and William Thomas Wittick.  In partnership, they established the Darley Firebrick Company in 1893 on Bald Hill, Darley.  Thomas had arrived from Coventry in England.  He married Mary Ann Worthy in 1873 and they went on to have 15 children.  William Thomas Wittick (1857-1939) was born in Richmond, Victoria.  He married Hannah Barton in 1876.  They had 10 children.  William died in Sunshine and is buried at Bacchus Marsh.  William’s grand son later became the Manager at Darley.

The Darley Fire Brick Company had a second part in the outer Melbourne area of Montrose.  This began in 1904 when David Mitchell, (1829-1916) father of Dame Nellie Melba purchased 10 acres of land from James Walker, a brick maker who began making bricks, including firebricks in Montrose in 1898.   James Walker had been making fire bricks at Montrose, as well as ordinary house bricks.  David took a controlling interest in the Darley Fire Brick Company in 1898.  They used rectangular downdraught kilns to make their bricks.  Among many other notable Melbourne buildings, David built the Exhibition Buildings in the Carlton Gardens, the only surviving example of 19^th C exhibition buildings in the world.

  

This land was on the corner of Montrose and Cambridge roads, (Lots 35b & C).  The works were situated on a small creek that flowed parallel to Cambridge Road and eventually into Olinda Creek.  David arrived in Melbourne aboard the ship “Anna” on the 6^th of April 1852.  He worked as a mason and builder as well as spending time on the Bendigo goldfields.  In 1856 he married Isabella Dow, daughter of James Dow, an engineer at Langlands foundry, South Melbourne.  (A Fitter at Langlands, Herbert Austin, later returned to England to begin the Austin car company.) 

David was quite a businessman.  In 1859 he had a brick making company in Burnley Street and in 1874 and later became a shareholder in the Builders Lime and Cement Company.  In 1890, he and his partner R.D. Langley began a Portland Cement factory at Burnley using kaolin from Lilydale.  In 1878 he purchased Cave Hill Farm at Lilydale and started excavating limestone from the property.  The “Darley Firebrick Company Pty Ltd” was formally begun on the 9^th of May 1898.  David Mitchell was the majority shareholder.

The works then had an output capacity of 82,000 bricks per week produced in a bottle kiln and three downdraught kilns.  They would go on to produce over 100 different shapes and sizes of refractory bricks and tiles.

This article from the local newspaper at the time, describes the works much better than I could.

The large 2-storey wooden -buildings, and iron and brick chimney shaft, erected by the above company about 2 miles to the north of Bacchus Marsh, fill a conspicuous place in the landscape, and when the lengthy brick-drying sheds are roofed in the " factory" appearance will be very marked. In addition, there will be 1 or 2 large kilns. It will be 2 or 3 months yet before everything is in working order to make bricks.  Wonderful progress has been made in a short time under the practical supervision of Mr. William Emslie, a right trusty manager for many years for Mr. David Mitchell, of Cave hill, Lilydale, the well-known agriculturalist, dairy farmer, cement manufacturer, contractor, &c., and famed also as being the father of Madame Melba.  A great quantity of cement concrete and brick foundation work has been put in, which is not very noticeable now that the wooden buildings cover them. The principal building is 34ft. x 24ft, and 20ft. high, and it has an upper floor to receive the pulverized clay. The lower floor will contain the pug mill and brick-making machinery, very little of which is yet on the ground. At the upper side of this building, to wards the clay pit, and with a floor 4ft. higher, is the Chillean mill shed, 23 x 19, and 16ft. high. Here a very massive Chillean mill, 9ft. in diameter, and with 2 iron rollers weighing 2 tons each, will pulverize the blended material (the proportions of which are a trade secret) of which the bricks will be composed. The clay will be received above the mill in a hopper, to the mouth of which trucks will run on an up and down tramway from the clay pit, part of the distance being bridged by a timber staging, or viaduct. The bed-plate for the Chillean mill is in position, on a substantial concrete foundation, and all the working parts are lying round ready for erecting. The mill will dry crush', all the material put into it, and the product will be taken by elevators to the upper floor above the pug mill, where 90 tons can be stored, under cover, the object being to keep the stuff dry until it is." tempered" in the pug mill, and otherwise prepared for the brick moulding, and pressing.  Elevated water tanks will supply the sprinklers, or whatever methods of applying the water is used,and a shaft is being sunk to obtain this indispensable fluid. It is down 106ft, in very hard conglomerate, and water has not yet been got, but the work will be persevered with. The shaft is substantially slabbed all the way down. At right angles to the 2 sheds (which are practically 1 shed) containing the machinery, are the engine house and boiler house, side by side. The engine is a horizontal one, 25 h.p, and the boiler is 20 ft. long by 54-ft. diameter. The boiler, with a 55ft. chimney, is built in and all ready for work. The engine bed is ready, but the engine it self is lying outside the building. The boiler house is 30 x 10, and 11ft. high. The engine house 24 x 13, and 13ft. high. A brick drying shed, 180ft. long, and 34ft. wide, joins end on to the boiler house.  At the further end of this shedthe brick-burning kilons will be erected. The first 1 is to have 5 fires, and will be 32ft. x 40ft., and 20ft. high. The plant is capable of turning out 15,000 bricks per day, and a large number of men will be employed. It is said that the demand for fire bricks in Melbourne amounts to about 50,000 per week, half of which are imported at present, but it is claimed for the Darley bricks that they will supersede the imported ones. They have given tests, with imperfect puddling, 40 per cent, better than expected. The supply of clay is believed to be what is termed "practically unlimited."  The company, which consists of 5 shareholders, of whom Mr. David Mitchell is chairman, has an area of 15 acres, all of which is believed to contain the very purest and best fire clay. At the pit or quarry opened up by Mr. W. T. Wittick, one of the shareholders, there is a " face" showing 7ft of ordinary brick-making clay and gravel, then 10 ft. of the best and purest fire-clay. A shaft underfoot has disclosed 2 more seams-3,ft. and 2,ft., with gravel clays in between, and the shaft sunk further away from the hill side to get water has gone through a 35ft. seam of fireclay. Such immense seams are seldom met with. Mr. Wittick has burnt about 100,000 firebricks from the clay, all of which found ready sale. He has now got capitalists to take up the venture, and the amount of money they have spent upon developing it, and the still larger amount yet to be spent, be sides the working capital required, all give agreeable proof to this district, at any rate, that they have every faith in their good works.  If the output is as extensive and as profitable as everyone hopes it will be, there is every prospect of the Railway Department running a light line from the Bacchus Marsh station yard to the boundary of the Company's property. The surveyed line is there now, having been surveyed as part of the projected railway to Coimadai and Bullengarook.  We repeat what we have frequently stated-namely, that the best hopes for Bacchus Marsh development lie in this northerly direction, and it is very gratifying to find such a man as Mr. David Mitchell putting his ability, energy, and capital into what may be called the head debouchure of that large and much undervalued region.

Bacchus Marsh Express, 18 January 1902. P3

In 1982, the company changed its name to Darley Refractories Pty Ltd following its purchase of the South Yarra Firebrick Company, making it the sole producer of firebricks in Victoria.  

Montrose Brickworks

Hardly anything remains of this brick-works today.  The area has been made into parkland and considerable regrowth has obliterated almost everything of the brick-works.  The only areas remaining relatively untouched are the ramp along which the clay trucks were pulled up from the pit and the platforms where the buildings were located.  Much of the pit has been filled with rubbish, like so many other pits around Melbourne.

The first small-scale brick works in Montrose was opened by James Walker in 1891 at a site on Mount Dandenong Road where the CFA Fire Station is now located.  Hand-made bricks were made from red porous clay dug at the site to be used in baker’s ovens; and white kaolin clay used for fire-bricks.  These types of clay were unique to this location.  James had a store on the corner of Mount Dandenong Road and Montrose Road that he named “Rose Mont”, said to be the origin of the town’s name.  The original brick-works site closed in 1920.

In the English-speaking world, the term for a kiln used to make a smaller supply of bricks is known as the Scotch kiln.  It is also known as a Dutch Kiln or a Scove Kiln.  It is the type of kiln most commonly used in the manufacture of bricks.  Scoving is the process of covering the kiln in wet clay to seal any openings.  It is a roughly rectangular building, open at the top, and having wide doorways at the ends. The sidewalls are built of old or poorly made bricks set in clay.  There are several openings called fire-holes, or " eyes," made of firebricks and fire clay, opposite one another. 

Construction of a Rectangular Downdraught Kiln at Gulsons Brick Works in Goulburn NSW

The dried raw bricks are arranged in the kilns so as to form flues connecting the fire-holes or eyes, and they are packed (crowded) in such a way to leave small spaces between the bricks from bottom to top and front to back and side to side through which the fire can find its way to and around every brick. A modification of the Scotch Kiln is sometimes to have openings in the floor like latticework, through which the heat ascends from arched furnaces underneath.

After the dried bricks are loaded into the kiln, the ends (or wickets) are built up, and plastered over with clay. At first the fires are kept low, simply to drive off the moisture.  After about three days the steam ceases to rise and the fires are allowed to burn up briskly.  The draught is regulated by partially stopping the fire-holes with clay, and by covering the top of the kiln with old bricks, boards, or earth, so as to keep in the heat.  It takes between 48 to 60 hours for the bricks to be sufficiently fired, and they will have shrunk to the appropriate size.  The fire-holes are then completely sealed with clay and all air excluded.  The kiln is then allowed to cool gradually.

About a half-ton of soft coal is required for burning each 1000 bricks. The exact quantity depends upon the type of clay, quality of fuel, and the skill in setting the kiln.

A convenient size for a Scotch kiln is about 60 feet by 11 feet internal dimensions, and 12 feet high. This will contain about 80,000 bricks. The fire-holes are 3 feet apart. These kilns are often made 12 feet wide, but 11 feet is enough to burn through properly.

An early Scotch Kiln showing the way bricks were stacked and the size of timber for firing.

A kiln takes on an average a week to burn, and, including the time required for crowding and emptying, it may be burnt about once every three weeks, or ten times in an average season. This will produce about 800,000 bricks that is about as many as would be turned out by two moulders in full work.  The bricks in the centre of the kiln are generally well burnt. Those at the bottom are likely to be very hard, some clinkered. Those at the top are often badly burnt, soft, and unfit for exterior work.

A Scotch Kiln is of a type known as an intermittent kiln.  A Hoffman Kiln is known as a continuous kiln.  In a continuous kiln bricks remain stationary and the fire moves through the kiln with assistance or help of a chimney or by a suction fan.  Most brick works in Victoria ended up using the “Hoffman” kilns of this type.  The kilns at Montrose were intermittent types and could not compete with the volume produced in the Hoffman Kilns in Melbourne.

Fire Bricks, or refectory bricks are used to line high temperature fireboxes, such as furnaces, kilns and fireplaces.  They are also used for processes with extreme chemical stresses.  They are also used in processes using electrical or gas fuels.  They also have better insulation and sound proofing qualities and do not fracture when exposed to rapid temperature changes.  They can withstand heat of up to 2,800 degrees C.

The next chapter began with David Mitchell (1829- 1916) who is best known as the father of Australian icon Dame Nellie Melba.  Davis arrived in Melbourne on board the ship “Anna” on the 6^th of April 1852 and worked as a mason and builder as well as spending some time on the Bendigo goldfields.  In 1856 he married Isabella Dow, daughter of James Dow, an Engineer at Langlands foundry.  (A fitter at Langlands, Herbert Austin later returned to England to begin the Austin car company.)

David Mitchell

On the 29^th of August 1904, David Mitchell bought 10 acres of land from James Walker on the eastern corner of Montrose and Cambridge roads (Lots 35 B & C).  The works was situated on a small creek that flowed parallel to Cambridge Road and eventually into Olinda Creek.  Mitchell became the majority shareholder in the Darley Fire Brick Company, outside Bacchus Marsh (Registered Office Olivers Lane Melbourne) in 1902 and began manufacturing of fire bricks in Montrose as well as Darley  using rectangular downdraught kilns.  

David built the Exhibition Buildings in the Carlton Gardens and St Patrick’s Cathedral, Eastern Hill, just to mention a couple of his projects.  In 1859, David had a brick-making company in Burnley Street and in 1874 he became a shareholder in the Builders Lime and Cement Company.  In 1890, he and his partner R.D Langley began a Portland Cement factory at Burnley using Kaolin from Lilydale.  In 1878 he purchased Cave Hill Farm at Lilydale and started excavating limestone from the property.

“Brick works of every description have cropped out within the last 2 years 6 months. Under the management of Messrs Naylor, Tranter and Derbishire, who keep things in full swing huge storage sheds, for moulded material have been erected some 250 feet long, other buildings attached, engine house and otherwise, where the bricks of all sorts are turned out by the thousands.  A good start considering the time, roads and sundry obstructions to develop such as a brick making industry.  Since the long expected railway has flown to a better land I'm told flowing with milk and honey and otherwise which had caused us of Montrose to look after it, and of our own lookout as a dark blot, and prospects unsolaced for its prosperity since the Creator, looked back on it and so leaving his huge foot mark behind in disgust as he disappeared to mould a brighter place, possibly our neighbours doorways, Lilydale and Wandin districts; possibly the luck they have stolen has paid them.

Possibly we could expect to see a tram track to the kilns; if only bricks sold well and a dozen yards were set in full swing, and fire clay in abundance. But trade is not good enough to gratify any other attempts at present.  Perhaps fail latter on. Roads not fit to pay to cart along. Fire clay of the very best can be got. Tiles, pipes, fire bricks and a dozen other sorts are turned out.  Very good assortment for the time to prove how trade runs. The works are not 10 minutes walk from the Montrose store and post office, even at this some residents a mile off are not aware of such a company as brick-works in the district to the present. Three fair sized kilns are kept going continually the clay is hawled (sic) up by steam power and the bricks of all sorts cut and set and then pressed to finish for the fiery kilns. Some 9 or 10 workmen are kept going regular as clockwork. £60 or £70 per month ($30 to $35) worth more or less are turned out. Not so bad since developing a trade to be included no small matter.”

Richard Walker Lilydale Express 11 October 1901

But early on, David had his eyes elsewhere.  In 1902, he bought into another brick making plant at Bacchus Marsh.  The clay was considered superior to the local clays in Montrose and the area available for the brick works was much larger.  Output was higher.  In time, the majority of manufacture was undertaken there.  There was  already a brick works operating there, having been established in 1893 by Thomas Akers and William Wittick.  David bought into the partnership in 1898.  This additional capital allowed for expansion.  On the 9^th of May 1898, the “Darley Firebrick Company Pty Ltd” was formed.  Mitchell holding the majority of shares.  It is now known as “Darley Refractories Pty in 1982 following acquisition of the South Yarra Firebrick Company.

In 1914, the Button family came to Montrose.  Clarence Lloyd “Clarrie’ Button was born in Dunedin, Otago, New Zealand around 1878.  Clarrie died at age 73 and was buried in the Lilydale Cemetery on the 30^th of August 1951.  Clarrie and his wife Mary Jane (Daughter of WJ Walker) lived at 14 Walker Road Montrose.  They were married in 1900.  Mary Jane died in 1941 age 61.   He was by profession a Builder who had lived and worked in  New Zealand and Tasmania, as well as inner suburban Melbourne.  Clarrie is listed as being “Manager” of the brick-works in 1920.  Clarrie and his nephew William (Billy) Walker, an experienced brick-maker, took over the company.  They greatly expanded the business.  The Darley Fire Brick Company continues today at Bacchus Marsh, on the opposite side of Melbourne.

Fire-Lumps, Agricultural Pipes and Partition Bricks at the Montrose Brick Works.

The bricks made at the Montrose brickworks were sold throughout Victoria.  In 1928 the brickworks were cutting 16,000 bricks per day and employed up to 20 men.   Montrose still specialised in two types of firebricks; bricks for Bakers ovens made from red porous clay and fire bricks made from white clay.  They also produced fire lumps (for furnaces) agricultural pipes of all sizes, perforated bricks for iron furnaces, sole tiles and gutter bricks, as well as normal house bricks.  A Fire-Lump is a large brick between approximately 18 inches to 2 feet long by 9 inches deep and 6 inches thick.  They cover the floor and lower side if the furnace.   A Sole-Tile is placed at the bottom of a drain to provide a firm base.  Hard clay bases do not need sole-tiles.

Layout of the works

The great depression hit Montrose Brickworks hard, along with many other brick-makers throughout Australia.  Brick making has and is a high volume, low profit margin business.  It does not take much to tip a company over the edge.  The Montrose brickworks was finally brought to a halt by World War II.  In 1946, staffing shortages were affecting brick makers across Australia.  In Victoria, soldiers returning from the Second World War were not willing to come back into the hard, dirty and dangerous environment of a brick works.  Before the war, there were 34 brick kilns in Melbourne, employing 1034 men.  After the war, there were only 30 kilns operating, employing 600 men.  There was a particular shortage in the roofing tile industry.  New homes were being built quickly, with weatherboard being used extensively.  Even though the homes were timber, they still used fired roof tiles. 

This new drying shed was built in 1931

Many of his workers had gone to war leaving Clarrie with no choice but to sell the business to Rimingtons Nursery in 1945.  The site was used to make flower-pots until the late 1950s, possibly until the early 1960s.   This was necessary because of the shortage of terra-cotta pots after the war.  The brick-works made pots up to 12” in diameter.  They did not use metal pots.  Rimingtons was a large wholesale and retail nursery business, plus ornamental trees, with properties in inner suburban Kew, their retail outlet and propagation nursery as well as Clarinda, their distribution centre and 100 acres at Toolangi as well as Montrose.

They produced a range of products from clay, not only fire bricks, that were used for chimneys and fireplaces but also agricultural pipes, partition bricks, fire lumps for furnaces, as well as house-bricks.  The Montrose Historical Society purchased 700 of the Montrose bricks and had them made into a memorial and display for this almost forgotten part of local history.  In it’s day, it was the only major industry in the town and most men at one time or another had worked there.

Montrose bricks can be mostly identified by their stamps.  Early bricks were stamped “DFB Co” (Darley Fire Brick Company), “DFB Co Works Montrose”, “Montrose” or “Montrose Fire Brick.”  Some bricks have thumb-prints, believed by some to be a counting technique, but also made when pushing bricks from a mould (some bricks were hand made in pairs).  If you want to see any quantity of these early bricks, I suggest you visit the Ballarat Lodge and Convention Centre.  When this establishment was built, they used bricks from the ovens of the now demolished Sunshine Biscuit factory in Ballarat.

  

Part of the Montrose Brick Display at the Montrose Shopping Centre.

My thanks to the volunteers at the Lilydale and District Historical Society for much of the information contained in this post.