Glenthompson Brick Company

If you were in Victoria from about 4.5 million years ago until as recently as 7,200 years ago, you would have seen hundreds of active volcanoes that were a part of Western Victoria’s landscape forming one of the World’s largest basalt plains; with more than 400 volcanoes mapped. 

This basalt plain stretches from Melbourne to Portland and is as wide as from Colac to Beaufort.  It consists mainly of vast open areas of grasslands, large, shallow lakes, small patches of woodland and stony rises from the once hot lava flows. The low peaks of dormant and extinct volcanoes dot the landscape. 

Glenthompson is a town on this plain on the Glenelg Highway between Ballarat and Hamilton, close to the Grampians mountain range.  The population of the town is now less than 150.  The only real landmark in the town is the Welsh style chimney of the local brickworks.  Once the main industry in the town and now rarely operational, it supplied bricks for many regional buildings built in the post war era.   Originally, a small town named Yuppekiar was built about 5 kilometres away, but it moved when the railway was built linking Ballarat and Hamilton.  Their post office opened in 1866 and the town was known as Yuppekiar before reverting to Glenthompson.

During pastoral settlement of the volcanic plains in the 19^th Century, this stone was used to construct hundreds of kilometres of dry-stone-walls and has become a characteristic feature of the Western District landscape.  These eruptions left vast, deep deposits of basalt, or bluestone as it is known.  From the 1830s, this olivine basalt was quarried in Melbourne as a building material from pits in what are now the Fitzroy Gardens and the suburbs of Carlton and Clifton Hill.  Later, quarries began in Williamstown, Footscray and Brunswick, as well as Coburg and Preston. 

The gold rush of the 1850s saw the population of Victoria explode as a wave of migration flooded the fledgling colony.  Many major buildings in Melbourne were made from this local bluestone, as well as warehouses, bridges, Streets, curbing and laneways.  For example, when the old Newmarket Sale yards were redeveloped, over 1.6 million bluestone “pitchers” were removed.  Councils used around 480,000, another 480,000 were re used on the site and 700,000 were sold for $2.50 each. 

In part, because of the expense of transporting bluestone, bricks gradually came to replace stone as the preferred building material.  Hoffman Brick & Potteries Ltd in Brunswick, one of Melbourne's first brickworks (1870), was quickly followed by Butler's Brickworks (1879), Fritsch Holtzer & Co. (1880) and the Northcote Brick Co. (1882). The first brick clay pits were located in the inner suburbs, close to the areas of greatest building activity.  Small brick works had sprung up all over the State by this time.

The main soil type overlaying the brick duplex clay area of Glenthompson are bleached sodic, brown chromosol.   The term “duplex” is used in Australia to describe soils with contrasting texture between soil horizons, they are also referred to as “texture contrast soils.”  The topsoil is strongly acidic greyish brown fine clay sandy loam. Subsoil is yellowish brown heavy clay.  It is a free-draining soil, usually requiring fertilizing for horticulture.  The underlying shale quarried for brick making is Silurian mudstone.  The Silurian period is the third period of the Paleozoic era that began at the end of the Ordovician period around 440 million years until around 419 million years.  Melting icecaps during the Silurian period contributed to these sediments overlying the Ordovician layers. Extensive erosion occurred during this period because of the lack of plants and a large part of Victoria was formed by sedimentation during the Silurian period.

Mudstone is hardened mud made up of a fine-grained sedimentary rock. (Originally clay with grains too fine to be seen without a microscope).  It also contains other minerals such as calcite.  Some mudstone becomes shale, (or laminated and fissile mudstone).  Shale is characterized by compaction into laminations, or layers about one centimeter thick.  “Fissile” means that the shale easily splits along the laminations.  Historically, the terms “shale” and “Slate” were interchangeable.  Shale can be crushed and mixed with water to form clays for brick making.

Shale is thinly stratified, consolidated, sedimentary clay with well-marked cleavage parallel to the bedding.  Very early in the days of European settlement, large quantities of this fine and even grained mudstone shale were discovered close to the surface in and around Glenthompson.

The current site of the brickworks, located on the corner of Donald Forbes Street and the Glenelg Highway, was originally part of 245 acres purchased on the 8^th of September 1873 by Samuel Fielding.  The area was already producing clay for bricks, usually on-site, sometimes from excavations for dams and used for small building works.   There had been a brick works in Glenthompson since the 1860s.   At the time, many settlers wanted large, imposing red bricks homes like those back in the UK.  These were produced in primitive kilns known as “clamps”.  Other methods involved burning 3-4 foot lengths of wood placed between rows of bricks in open stacks.  This had the added advantage of helping to clear the land as it required around a ton of wood to fire 1000 bricks.

Put simply, bricks are man-made rocks.  We take sedimentary material and turn it into a metamorphic one by applying heat.  They are small individually moulded rectangular blocks of clay of uniform size that are baked in a kiln until hard and used as a building or paving material.  The first attempt to standardize the size of a brick in England was in 1477.   Much later, Queen Elizabeth 1st granted a charter to brick and tile makers, after which a standard size of 9” x 41/4” x 2 ¼ inches became common, although variations in size continued.  In 1849 the Statute Brick was required to be this size.  Today, they are produced in a standard size; 2 ¼ inches by 3 ¾ inches by 9 inches, or 75mm by 115mm by 230mm. Whatever size, the ratio of 4:2:1 is standard.

The problem for many early brick works was that they were operated by a sole brick maker who needed to be there twenty-four hours a day to set up, load, fire, unload and remove the bricks.  It was hard, dangerous, physical work demanding long hours and hard work for little return, except for volume production.  A single kiln with a single operator could take around two weeks to make a batch, and then set up ready for the next one.  If a fire went out, it was hard to re-start and a batch of bricks could be ruined.  Many batches of under fired bricks (or doughboys) were made during this period.  Although the workers were paid little and generally considered to be from a lower socio-economic group, the work needed skill and judgment and expert timing to be done properly.  Because competition was fierce and margins were tight, a sole proprietor also needed to have the optimum number of firing cycles from each kiln to maximize output and profit.

Significant deposits of suitable shale/clay were exploited to manufacture bricks and the forests that previously existed were used to fire the brick making kilns.  Little now remains in the area of this now vanished industry, and what does remain receives little, if any recognition.  Throughout Australia, historic brickworks sites generally exist now only through neglect. 

The Thompson brothers, George and Joseph, formerly of Ballarat and the new owners of Yallum Park, about 12 miles north of Glenthompson where they began making bricks.  A building in Glenthompson, believed to be 90 years old and originally owned by the Scott family was demolished in 1959.  The chimney bricks were some of the original hand-made Thompson brothers bricks and were still in excellent condition.  They later established the Glenthompson Brickworks in the town of Glenthompson in 1900.  It was a small yard in a paddock east of the primary school, near the railway line.  The street running past it is named Thompson Street in their honour.  The business prospered and consolidated with the increasing demand for the red bricks that it could produce using traditional manual methods. They then moved to the present site on the Glenelg Highway because of the availability of red clay for the red bricks fashionable at the time.  Their kilns were making around 60 to 70,000 bricks a month.

Clay was brought up from the pit (weather permitting) each day in a wheeled car on a tram-line pulled by a horse, known as a “whim-horse”. The horse pulled a bar similar to the hand of a clock round and round, winding the cable on a spindle until the car reached the top.  A “whim”, also known as a whim gin or horse capstan is a device used in mining for hauling materials to the surface.  It comprises a capstan or a wide drum with a vertical axle.  A rope or cable is wound around the drum with both ends traversing several pulleys and hanging down the pit face.  As the drum is turned around, a wheeled bin is pulled up a narrow gauge rail track laid on the side of the pit leading to the works. 

James Gunn a carpenter from Dunkeld made their wooden brick moulds.  Moulds could be either single or double.  Bricks were made by hand by Alfred Abrahams who could select the right amount of clay for each brick and made it into an automatic, rhythmic operation.  His two sons Ray and Thor were also employed at the brickworks for many years.  

The bricks were stacked into rows for drying and covered with thatch, made from rushes cut from local swamps.  They were then stacked into the kilns for burning.  After firing, they were cooled and sorted before being carted to the station by horse and dray for dispatch.  A single horse could pull a load of 500 bricks that would have been loaded by hand, two at a time.  The old horse was so used to the trip from yard to station that the driver had only to set the horse on the road and it would walk there by itself on the road, while the driver took a short cut.  The price of bricks in those days (1905) was 30/- per thousand.  Today the price of a brick is around $1.00 each.

Clay Preparation

Before bricks are made, clay has to be extracted and prepared.  This process consists of the following steps.

Tempering

The process of Tempering is adding water to the clay to make it more workable. Too much or too little water added to the clay mix will decrease quality, though.

Disintegration and Crushing

An alternative to tempering is disintegration or weathering, this involves allowing clay to dry in the sun and absorb moisture from rain and dew. The repeated drying and moistening of clay will bring clay to a plasticity and workability appropriate for brick making.  Crushing will make the mixture more homogeneous.  In the days of the whim horse, clay was brought up each day.  When the plant was mechanized, a years worth of clay was extracted over a period of 4 to 5 days.  This was left to weather and was used over an extended period.

Mixing

Mixing is done to make the clay homogeneous and smooth. There are different techniques that can be used to do this, including using animal power or letting humans mix the clay with their feet. Different admixtures such as coal or sawdust can be added to the clay for two beneficial reasons:

1)     reduce cracking during drying and

2)     reduce fuel usage during firing.

Moulding

Importance of Standardizing the Brickmaking Process

Bricks should have standard characteristics if they are to be used in construction. For example, builders or contractors may buy bricks from several different sources for one project: the bricks must be the same size or there will be problems matching the construction of different sections of the building.  Moreover, a standard brick size will allow a builder or contractor to more accurately determine how many bricks will be needed for a project.  A new brick maker therefore, should follow local standards, checking with other brick makers in the area or with local authorities or building and construction contractors.

Shrinkage

When determining the size of a mould for brick making a necessary consideration must be shrinkage.  Bricks will shrink when drying, so the mould size must be larger than the intended finished brick.

Slop Moulding

In slop moulding, a wet clay mixture is used.  The mix is put into a rectangular form without a top or bottom.  A problem with this technique is that because the mix is so wet, the brick may deform under its own weight and the surface can be marked easily.

Sand Moulding

Sand moulding utilizes a drier clay mix, formed into a wedge and thrown into a mould. A bow cutter can be used to smooth the top of the brick, and the form is released because of a hinged bottom. Since the clay is drier, the brick can be moved with wooden palettes that can reduce the amount of surface marks. There are multiple benefits to using sand moulding instead of slop moulding, such as:

Less water is used, so there is less cracking and the bricks are stronger.

Fewer moulds are needed because they can be removed from the brick right away.

Work spaces are cleaner because of less splashing of the drier mix.

Workers stand up instead of squatting down, so they are more comfortable.

Bricks are more regular because they don't deform like slop moulded bricks, so a better product is produced therefore, better construction and more attractive buildings will be possible.  Slop moulded bricks can be imprinted with the brick maker's name, inside a "frog," on the flat side of the brick. This helps the brick dry and fire well, and is a good form of advertising.

Drying

Water was added during clay preparation to increase workability of the mixture, but in drying it is removed for several reasons.  First, there will be less cracking in fired bricks with less water content. Secondly, additional fuel is needed, beyond what is used for firing, to dry the bricks in the kiln.  Proper drying of bricks will involved rotating the bricks for different exposures to ensure even drying rates.  For best results, drying should be done slowly.  This will help with more even drying.  Also, the best drying technique may change from location to location, so the brick makers must gain experience to determine the best way to dry bricks for each production process.

A typical drying shed, this one was in Dandenong.

The First World War caused demand to drop and production tapered off, sometimes stopping altogether.  By the end of the Second World War there was no more demand for hand-made bricks.  With the decline of that demand, the Thompson family sold the business to Donald Forbes, a local pastoralist and Reg Williams, a master builder from Hamilton in 1947. They made immediate improvements to the plant and, in 1949, sold out to Glenthompson Brickworks Pty Ltd, with Forbes remaining as Managing Director.  They had installed a small crusher, one brick press and built four Scotch Kilns.  Shortly after, four rectangular downdraught kilns were also built.  Three of these kilns are still at the brickworks.  These were downdraught kilns and the smoke was removed through a new 96 foot square tapered chimney as well as a machinery house, resulting in 18,000 bricks a day capacity.  The re-opening of the brickworks after the Second World War in 1946 by Forbes and Williams was instrumental in bringing an electricity supply to the town. Traditionally, square chimneys are usually made by Welshmen, circular ones by Cornish.  

When someone came to an area that had sufficient clay, a small kiln, usually made of mud or unfired clay (and known as a “Clamp”) would be built to hold the “green” bricks.   The Brick Maker stacked the bricks appropriately to ensure sufficient space around them to conduct the heat.  When the bricks were suitably “fired” they could be used.  The brick maker would eventually make enough bricks to build a simple Scotch kiln or rectangular downdraught kiln.  This type of kiln was popular at the time and generally had sufficient capacity to hold up to forty to sixty thousand bricks.  This meant that the kiln had sufficient thermal mass and volume to produce commercial quantities of bricks necessary to ensure that the kiln cooled slowly and less heat was lost during firing.  The vast woodlands around Glenthompson were quickly used up by this process and by the many farmers moving into the area.

This is a photograph of John Thompson and his son George (no relation as far as I know).  They are in front of a clamp broken open for unloading.

Brick kilns first started in pits then walls were added.  These are known as “Clamps.” that were ventilated at the top, rather than have a chimney.  Building a tall chimney stack, allowed the fire to burn more efficiently by improving air flow or “draw” through the kiln.  The bricks produced by Clamps were not of high quality.   Variations of the different kilns have been invented over the years with varying degrees of efficiency and cost, but all kilns fall into one, or both, of two categories: Downdraught and Tunnel.

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.  A Scotch Kiln is often used to make the quantity of bricks needed on site for a Hoffman Kiln.  This can be around 400-500,000 bricks.  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. 

This is a picture of three Scotch kilns built at the State Brickworks at Wonthaggi.  Note the large stacks of wood for firing the kilns.  Note the stacks of firewood.  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.

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.  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, but not at Glenthompson.

Why did some brick makers continue to use downdraught kiln when most other brickworks used “Hoffman” kilns?  The answer is quality and control and colour matching.  They were well fired, free from cracks and distortion with sharp well-defined edges.  Some makers, like Glenthompson also made a variety of custom brick and tile to suit special jobs. 

Pipes were sometimes made in beehive kilns; an intermittent kiln, circular in plan, with fireboxes arranged around the circumference.  Pipes were stacked in the arched chamber to retain greater heat and create more durable pipes.  Although called “beehives” because of their distinctive shape, they look more like a yert.  An old beehive kiln is still at the Bendigo Pottery.

It took one week to stack and arrange the bricks in a downdraught kiln.  It took another week to fire the bricks, consisting of three days to dry out the bricks and four days at 2000 degrees Celsius.  It took another week to unpack. 

The kilns had metal bracing to prevent them from falling apart during firing because of the heat expansion.  This sometimes consisted of pieces of old steel railway track buried vertically about one and a half metres into the ground at regular intervals around the kilns.  These posts went to roof height and metal strapping or bars were fixed horizontally around the kiln to brace the brickwork. 

Bricks

Clay bricks come in several basic types;

Hand Made or Moulded

These are very costly to produce, as they are quite labour intensive.  It is only a specialist or boutique company that could or would make them today.  They are made by throwing a lump of clay into a mould and then cutting off any excess.  Sometimes machine-made bricks are treated to give them a rough or irregular appearance to imitate a hand-made brick.  These bricks are made from clay that has been mixed (pugged) with water.  This process is known as “tempering” to make the clay workable.  Too much or too little water changes the quality of the bricks.  These types of bricks were produced at the Glenthompson Brick Company.  Over time, they came in two types;

Machine Pressed Bricks

Semi-dry plastic.  The clay is mixed with up to 12% water depending on the clay.  The mix has to be sufficiently dry to fall into a mould using its own weight.  The clay is then formed under pressure into a frogged brick.  These bricks have smooth faces and sharp edges.  Dry pressed bricks have a cork-like appearance.

Stiff plastic.  The clay for these bricks has slightly higher water content (up to 17%).  The clay is forced under pressure from an auger into a mould.  The rough brick is then put into a second mould for a final pressing.  The texture of these bricks is rougher than a semi-plastic brick.  Wet-pressed bricks are very strong bricks, with a smoother, denser surface.

Brick Making Equipment

What did the equipment look like and how did it work?  Fortunately, most of the brick making equipment at Glenthompson is still in place.  The brick press is of the Bradley and Craven type. William Craven and Richard Bradley were two young engineers who produced revolutionary machinery for automating the production of bricks.  By 1853 the company’s Stiff Plastic Brick making machines were being sold throughout the UK and to many oversees markets, including South Africa, Germany and Australia.  The process was later powered by a powerful electric motor.  Originally, a steam engine, powered by a boiler was used.

The depression of the late 1920s and 1930s hit brick makers hard.  Production declined in line with falling sales.  It was not until the late 1930s that sales picked up again, however price controls introduced during the Second-World-War meant a constant battle with bureaucracy to keep brickworks financially viable.

These price controls lasted into the 1950s and improved pay and conditions for workers during this period meant further strain on the business.  Costs were continuing to rise and many other brick-works did not reopen after the war because of these increased costs and their inability to attract enough workers. 

Donald Forbes grew up at Cherry Mount near Glenthompson and purchased a property “Wintoc” from Arthur Thacker in 1919, running Hereford sheep and cattle.  He built a new home, the existing house, on the property in the interwar years.  After his accidental death in 1953, his successor Frank Borbiro began to explore alternative fuels for firing the kilns.

Frank was an Hungarian refugee who arrived in Australia in 1949.  He began working there in 1950 as a labourer.  He became the Managing Director in 1956 and served on the Shire of Mount Rouse council for 12 years and was a member of the Portland District Development Committee, Glenelg’s Regional Planning Authority and Willaura Hospital Board.  Frank was awarded an MBE for community service in 1979.

Reg Williams was an important master builder who was responsible for building the finest commercial buildings in Hamilton in the mid 20^th Century, many of them being designed by the leading Modernist architects, Seebrook and Fildes of Melbourne. 

The company prospered with the post World War Two boom. Again, it invested in substantial plant and equipment resulting in a production of 18,000 bricks a day. Forbes died in 1953, and his successor, Frank Borbiro began to explore alternative fuels for firing the kilns. Oil can be problematic for use when firing bricks.  A residue forms on the outside layer of bricks.  In 1956 the Brickworks became the first in Victoria to make the transition to oil firing. Borbiro, a Hungarian refugee, served on the Shire of Mount Rouse Council, the Portland District Development Committee, Glenelg's Regional Planning Authority and Willaura Hospital Board. Borbiro was awarded an MBE for community service in 1979.  Countless buildings have been constructed throughout the region using Glenthompson bricks, including many of great architectural significance.

Angora Banner Pty Ltd purchased the Brickworks in 1988 and is the current owner. The Brickworks, the most important supplier of bricks in the Western District outside Ballarat, is of particular interest because of its traditional method of firing in single kilns rather than the Hoffman process of continuous firing in circular kilns used in Melbourne. The Brickworks are in full working order and retain an excellent degree of integrity.  Production today is limited and considerable cost would be involved in bringing the plant up to date.

Special thanks to Heather Lynch for notes on much of the information here and to Dave Veccio, a worker at the brickworks for showing me around and giving me a lot more information.

Also, the "Hamilto Spectator"of Saturday July 10, 2010.