Oakleigh Brickworks

Trading Name	Oakleigh Brickworks
Years of Operation	1892 to 1896
Company Number
Address	South side of Dandenong Road between Grant & Clyde Sts
Council Lot No.	32
Coordinates	-37.895752, 145.096629
Current Use	Residential housing

No, I have not got this one mixed up.  There is another post coming on the Oakleigh Brick Company, that operated on the other side of Dandenong Road where Brickmakers Park is now.  This one was begun by John Scott who operated what he called the Oakleigh Brickworks on Dandenong Road.  An MMBW map from the 1920s shows his brick pit located on the corner of Clyde Street and Dandenong Road.  Other references refer to his works as a “Brickyard” but his advertisements refer to it as a “Brickworks”.  He also refers to bricks from the kiln.  This sounds like a sole trader with a rectangular downdraft kiln. 

When driving along Dandenong Road towards Melbourne, there is a pronounced dip in the Road between Grant and Clyde Streets.  In the original sub-division, Tamar Grove ended at Scott’s Brick works.  When the pit was filled, Tamar Grove was extended to Dandenong Road. As previously mentioned, Jack Worn helped fill that pit in the 1930s with broken bricks from other brick works.  Homes were only permitted to be built over the old brick works because the pit was filled with broken bricks and other solid fill.

  

John Scott (1831-1891) was a brickmaker who had his brickpit and kilns on Dandenong Road between Grant Street and Clyde Street in Oakleigh under what is now Tamar Grove.  He operated on over 4 acres for several years. The land was part of an early sub division of Oakleigh and was designated as Section 32.  Usually these blocks were 5 acres in size, but several years of rate books describe it as being either four or four and one half acres.

According to the History compiled by T.G.Newton in the early 1950s, John made the bricks for several houses in Grant Street Oakleigh, (some of which remain, No’s 13 to 19) that were owned by several members of Thomas Wilkinson’s family.  They were known as “Wilkinsons Folly” and later “Goats Terrace.”  So named because of the property price collapse at the time.  Thomas Wilkinson had earlier begun his own brickworks behind his “Half Way House” hotel at Notting Hill.  Other histories state that Wilkinson made the bricks for the Grant Street properties, but my money is on John because Thomas was well out of the brick business by then, although he retained an interest in the company that had bought his brick works. 

John advertised in the local paper as Oakleigh Brickworks J Scott Proprietor Dandenong Road First Class Bricks at Kiln Trade Supplied.

It appears that John was the sole proprietor and brick maker and had just the one kiln.  If that is the case, it is a wonder that he made it to the age of sixty-two.  At this time, it is likely that he too operated a rectangular downdraught kiln.  These are very labour intensive and require tending twenty-four hours a day when bricks are being fired, to ensure that constant heat is maintained.

John died in Oakleigh in 1891 aged 62 and is buried in the Oakleigh cemetery 603 Presbyterian Section. He has no grave marker but has a commemorative brick in the centre of the memorial park.  According to Oakleigh Council minutes in 1927 and 28, a fence was needed to secure an abandoned brick pit near the intersection of Ferntree Gully and Dandenong Roads.  This was either his pit or that of the Oakleigh Junction Brick Works.  It is not known if he married or had children but the electoral rolls later record a William John Scott, Brick Carter of Dandenong Road. 

Aerial View of the Remnants of John Scotts Brickworks,1931