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.