Oakleigh Brick Company

Trading Name	Oakleigh Brick Company also known as the "Oakleigh Brick and Tile Company"
Years of Operation	1912 too 1985
Company Number	C0006386N
Address	Stamford Road Oakleigh; to the East, Lever Street to  the West, Ferntree Gully Road to the South and  Scotchmans Creek to the North
Council Lot No.	21,22 &23
Coordinates	-37.893254, 145.100083
Current Use	Public Open Space (Brickmakers Park) and  Commercial Warehousing

The Oakleigh Brick Company followed others on the same site.  Previously there were the Excelsior Brick Works and the Eureka Brick Works.

The land began as a site for brick making on the 27th of April 1885 when Howard Tapley Clarton transferred ownership to John and Henry Goding.  Howard Tapley Clarton (1836 to 1902) was a man with either a casual acquaintance with the truth, or personal financial management.  Howard features prominently in the courts over an extended period.  As a Land Agent, he once applied to be allowed to pay one farthing in the pound on a 38,000 debt.  This was rejected.  Originally named Clarton Street, it was later renamed Stamford Road.  Was this as a result of Howard’s colourful business dealings?

On the 3^rd of February 1910, the local paper carried an article saying that “Owing to the want of coal, the Oakleigh brickworks, employing about 60 men, have been closed down for the present.   The works have been carried on with a reduced staff for the past five weeks.”

Oakleigh Brick Works Aerial View 1945

A revamped company began operating in 1917.  Mr H.F. Young of the Northcote Brick Company was appointed as the Managing Director.  Again in 1928, another restructure took place and a new group of shareholders took over the company.  These were;

Shareholders	No of Shares
Hoffman Brick and Potteries Ltd	4110
John Sinclair Walker	1350
Northcote Brick Company	4110
Basil Mead Ramsay	1350
New Northcote Brick Company Ltd	1386
Augustus Henry Holzer	2436
Charles Butler	1386
Barkly Brick Company	1386
Albert Henry Anglis	1386
Co-operative Brick Company Limited	2100
Henry Rooks	1350
City Brickworks Company Pty Ltd	2430

In May 1954, a double brick machine purchased from the now closed Horsham Brick Company was installed and began operating.

On the 6^th of February 1956, a clerk, Mr R Williamson with the company absconded after embezzling £72.2/-.  He had entered four false names onto the payroll and taken the money.   Police said that he was also wanted on other charges.

In March 1957 the company purchased over 44 acres, 3 Roods and 33 Perches of land at Bolinda Road Campbellfield, North of Melbourne. (Certificate of Title Volume 3458, folio 690484).  This land is now being used as a council tip near where the Ring Road is located and produced the clay that made the cream bricks so prevalent in the area on homes built in the late 1950 and 1960s.

In 1914, Mr Abraham Baxter of the Oakleigh Brickworks planned to build a theatre on a site in Atherton Road adjoining the Fire Station.

On March the 15^th 1938 at 4:30pm, John Terrill 58, Faceman and George French 55, Labourer were working 30 metres down at the bottom of the North-East face of the Oakleigh Brick Company quarry in Stamford Road Oakleigh.  A Faceman, as the name implies, worked the face of the quarry.  They were using a pneumatic drill to prepare the face for blasting.  No serious accidents had happened at the quarry in the past thirty years.

Witnesses working nearby in the quarry said that they heard a rumble and saw part of the face weighing about 15 tons fall from about 10 metres above the two men and crush them.  Their workmates scrambled furiously for about twenty minutes before the mutilated bodies of the two men were recovered.  Employees were emphatic that no blasting had been carried out before the rock fall.

Previously that day, Terrill had inspected the face from the top to make sure it was safe.  The quarry Foreman, Benjamin George Mathrick had also inspected the face and declared it safe.  Evidence would later emerge that a bullet hole had two weeks earlier been found on that face.  There had been no rain for some time and it was only after the rock fall that any faults were seen.  Newspapers around the country reported the accident with the size of the rock varying up to 100 tons and the quarry depth of over 150 feet.

A Coroners Enquiry was convened and the Coroner  (between 1936 and 1945) Mr Arthur Coyte Tingate heard evidence, assisted by Sergeant Gilbert, Victoria Police.  Mr Tingate was also the Coroner in the famous “Pyjama Girl” case.  Under the Mines Act, a jury was empanelled.  Fortunately for the process, an old miner was its Foreman and he proved crucial in the outcome.  Mr Stafford acted for the Oakleigh Brick Company Pty Ltd.  Mr Slater appeared for the widows.  Abraham Baxter was the Manager of the Brickworks that operated the quarry.

The bottom of the pit where the men had been working was angled upwards at 40 degrees, for about 10 metres then was near vertical to the top, giving the appearance of an overhang.  Thomas Platt, an Inspector with the Mines Department testified at the inquest that at the place where the rock had fallen he saw a slide and a fault line with an underlie of fifteen degrees.  He further testified that he periodically examined the quarry and that it had always been worked with reasonable care and that the fall was due to an unusual circumstance in the strata formation. 

Other witnesses said that although the area from where the rock fell was blocky ground, no greasy area was under the rock to cause it to fall. Blocky ground is jointed rock subjected to stress.  To the jury foreman, witnesses said that they had detected no cracks and a microscope would have been needed to see them and that any weaknesses would not have been found before the collapse without specialist equipment.

In a majority verdict, overruling the Coroner, the jury found that inadequate inspection was the reason.  The Coroner asked the jury to reconsider, but it would not.  It returned a finding of death by misadventure and that negligence on the part of the company in not making sufficient inspection of the ground before the accident to secure the safety of the workmen.

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.

Cream bricks were common in houses around Oakleigh in the 1950s and 1960s were made by the Oakleigh Brick Company and are made from red clay containing elevated amounts of lime and sulphur.  This type of clay was found in Campbelfield. and transported to the kilns where it was processed into what were known generically as “Clifton Creams.”  When the bricks are fired, they become creamy-yellow in color.

Although light-colored when first made, cream bricks are porous, causing them to absorb dirt and other pollutants; this tends to make houses made out of them darken as time passes. Once cream bricks absorb pollutants, they are difficult to clean, Initially, sandblasting was attempted; however, it not only proved to be ineffective, but damaged the bricks. Currently, chemical washes are accepted as the most effective method of cleaning cream bricks. 

In 1965, Clifton Brick Holdings had acquired a controlling interest in the Oakleigh Brick Company Pty Ltd.  Production ceased for a short time but normal operations resumed in August.  This increased output helped push the group’s production above 1 ½ million bricks per week.

In 1970, demand exceeded supply for machine pressed, wire cut face bricks, even with the plant operating at full capacity.  The Oakleigh Brick Company ceased production in the late 1970s.  The Company itself was not wound up until 1985.

Brickmakers Park now occupies the site of the former quarry at the Oakleigh Brick Company works.  It is a popular local amenity and has undergone extensive restoration and renovation.  Brick making machinery from the former Gambles brick works further along Ferntree Gully road has been installed there.  It makes an interesting, albeit forlorn diaplay.