Terracotta Roofing Tile Company Pty Ltd

Corner of Ferntree Gully Road and Dandenong Road Oakleigh

Holders of Title on the property were as follows; 

From	To	Owner	Born	Died
27 Mar 1890	29 Jan 1902	Clara Eliza Collins	1849	1902
29 Jan 1902	17 Jun 1902	Ida Segemeier
17 Jun 1902	2 Mar 1906	Ellen Matilda Green
2 Mar 1906	19 Jun 1909	Joseph Murray
19 Jun 1909	24 Nov 1909	Frank Oliver Harford	1864	1942
24 Jan 1909	2 Jun 1910	John Hendy
2 Jun 1910	22 Mar 1912	Frederick Oscar Bornum John Lemmon Peter Finlayson
22 Mar 1912	29 Oct 1914	Fritz Ernest Frankenberg	1877	1960
29 Oct 1914	23 Dec 1919	Richard Arthur Ethell	1873
23 Dec 1919	24 Mar 1921	Harold Frank Hunt	1878
24 Mar 1921	19 Aug 1930	ErnestHenry Montague Ratcliff	1863	1938

Most people would never have heard of this small company that made roofing tiles from a plant that had changed hands several times over many years.

Site of Terra Cotta Roofing Tiles Company in 1931
(After the Works equipment was sold off in 1930)

One of the early shareholders (250 shares) was Sir George Tallis (1869-1948), theatrical entrepreneur.  Tallis was closely associated with J. C. Williamson (The Firm) for over fifty years.  In 1896 he bought a quarter share in the company; in 1904 Williamson accepted him as a partner. Sarah Bernhardt's tour of Australia in 1891 marked a high point in his early career and in 1911 he was involved in planning Dame Nellie Melba’s opera season.

On Williamson's death in 1913, Tallis became a managing director of 'the Firm'. He was knighted in 1922 for services to the theatre and for wartime fund-raising. In 1926 he gave £2700 to the Melbourne University Conservatorium of Music for an additional wing, named after him. His diverse interests during the 1920s included a directorship of radio station 3LO and an association with the pioneering Australian film-maker F.W. Thring, father of actor Frank Thring. 

After having retired in 1931 through ill health, Tallis travelled widely and bred Ayrshires at his property, Beleura, on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. He died at Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, on 15 August 1948 and was cremated. A daughter and three sons survived him. His estate was sworn for probate at £163,460.

Many of the other shareholders were from around the Victorian country towns of Shepparton and Numerkah.  Just what that country connection is, I do not know.

The original Company Directors were:

James MacPherson Proctor

Garnet Raymond Cato

John Hosking

Reginald Francis Cox

Thomas Crossthwaite

To be later replaced by:

John Wesley McComas

Utar James Nicholas

Harold Frank Hunt

James McEwan Carroll

Henry Ezekiel Ireland and

Graeme Stobie; with

Wifred MacCrae Howitt as Company Secretary.

Their Memorandum of Association gives their stated aim as: “To carry on the business of manufacturers of and dealers in roofing tiles, tiles, bricks, ridging, air-bricks, pipes, pottery, earthenware, china, terracotta, ceramic ware of all kinds, lime and cement.”

As well as roofing tiles, the company also made roof ridging, air-bricks, (for sub-floor ventilation) drain pipes and chimney pots.  Terra Cotta roof tiles became popular during and after the First World War because corrugated iron and roof slates were in short supply and became prohibitively expensive.  The company used the railway siding at Oakleigh Station built by the Brick and Tile (Oakleigh Station) Company.  Half their output was supplied to Dunlop and Hunt Home Builders Limited, a large Melbourne builder.   They also later held 1000 shares in the company.  The Company Directors were not so involves, having only one share each.

In 1922 hope began evaporating as sales could not keep pace with production.  Their Annual Report said that; “during the early months of this year business was stagnant and as a result, stock accumulated.”  There was no requirement for Hunt's works on the intersection of Dandenong and Fern tree Gully Roads to be brought into production.  Frank Harvey had to resign due to ill health and was replaced by Mr W Turner who had been working at the tile works.  Before starting here, he had run his own tile works.

From the start, profits were never good, and the Annual Reports always predicted better days, until 1926 when the company made a significant loss.  Just before the Great Depression hit, they reported; “After having passed through such a period of trade depression as has occurred, your Directors feel very hopeful regarding the future of the Company and look with a greater degree of certainty than in previous years, to a profit-earning corporation.”  This did not happen and in 1927 the Directors reported; “your Board was forced to close down the works for the time being and to rely upon its resources apart from continuing production,” 

  

  Original List of Shareholders From 1921

There were two companies in Oakleigh that specialized in making clay roofing tiles.  Evans Brothers in Park Road and this one, the relatively short-lived Terra Cotta Roofing Tile Company.  The type of tile they produced was a form of the “Marseilles” tile.  Until World War 1, most roofing tiles were imported, but when imports ceased, local makers filled the void.  First made in France in 1874, they became popular when the moulds and presses were sold as a package deal.  They became the first world standard for roofing tiles.

The “Marseilles” tiles can best be described as interlocking tiles with both the top and side locking into another tile.  This improves both wind and water protection and is also a good noise and heat insulator.  Like bricks, roof tiles were made close to the source of clay.  Terracotta tiles have been used for milennia because of their ease of manufacture and durability.  Even though concrete tiles are now popular, terracotta retains its reputation as a better product.  Warranties for concrete tiles are around half as long as those for terracotta.

Terra cotta is Italian, and Latin for baked earth.  Usually a term to describe items made from a naturally reddish-brown / orange colour. Sometimes describing an unglazed or a porous pottery body.  Roof tiles are "hung" from the framework of a roof by fixing them with nails or tied to the battens with wire.  The tiles are usually hung in parallel rows with each row overlapping the row below it to exclude rainwater and to cover the nails that hold the row below.  There are also roof tiles for special positions, particularly where the planes of the several pitches meet.  They include ridge, hip and valley tiles.These can either be bedded and pointed in cement mortar or mechanically fixed.

Making tiles is very similar to making bricks.  The digging and milling of the clay is the same.  The prepared clay is pressed through a roller and the tiles are stamped out.  Trimming the edges was originally done by hand and the green tiles stacked in a drying shed.  This could take several days, depending on the weather and season.  The tiles were then loaded into a kiln and cooked the same way as bricks.

1.   The process began with the extraction of the clay.  
Tiles were sometimes made by mixing several types of clay, or rock like material but the shale of Oakleigh was ideal for roofing tiles.

2.   The mixed clay was stockpiled to age the material.

3.  The clay was then blended by an apron feeder, a series of steel pans attached to a chain drive that drew the crushed clay from the stockpile at a controlled speed and thickness.

4.   The blended clay was fed into a wet pan where it was extruded through a perforated   floor.

5.   The clay was then crushed through differential rollers set about 1.5 metres apart.

6.   The clay then went through a second set of rollers about .75 metres apart.

7.   The now powdered mixture was then fed into a store mixer.

8.   The clay was then extruded through a pug-mill and cut into lengths to form batts.

9.   The batts were fed into a mechanical press that formed them into the required shape and size.

10. These “green” tiles were then stacked in a stillage. 
(A pallet or skid with a cage or sides or some form of support tailored to the material it is intended to carry.  Some designs are stackable.)

11.  Tiles were air-dried until the moisture content was significantly reduced.

12.  The downdraught kilns fired the tiles.

13.  The fired tiles were sorted and stacked.

The equipment fitted to the works in Oakleigh was modern by the standards of the day.  A 16 horsepower Seimens electric motor drove the equipment including a 30 horsepower Bates suction gas engine.  Following the 1850s gold-rushes, Victoria had become the key centre of manufacturing in Australia and its industrialists were early adopters of gas engines, an early namr for what now are known as internal combustion engines.  The early atmospheric gas engines provided a more cost-effective alternative to steam power.  The vertical format and limited weight of many early gas engines allowed them to be bolted directly to the floor alongside machinery or other equipment, with no need for a separate boiler house or large external brick chimney.

There were two kilns capable of producing 500,000 tiles per annum.  The site was sizeable enough to hold another kiln, although it appears it was not built.  There were also racks holding 20,000 tiles and capacity for another 30,000 was also available.  The Company   prospectus stated that there was thirty years clay available on site.  Their “Empire” brand tiles were described as the best roofing tiles on the market.

Their Works Manager was Mr Frederick Harvey.  Fred had 25 years experience in the industry, having worked for W.H Rocke & Co, the Mitcham Tile Works and Wunderlich Ltd.    In a letter to the General Manger of the Terracotta Roofing Tile Company, he said:  “With an extra kiln and more tile trays, I consider that I could add 20,000 tiles per month to the output of the works.  The cost of this extra output would be merely the cost of making, burning etc. as there would be practically no extra overhead charges.  Of course, the larger the output, the smaller the cost per thousand tiles.

As I have before stated, my experience in the leading tile manufactories of Australia has given me proof that there is nothing better on the market than “Empire” tiles and I know from our customers that if we had treble the present output, we could find a ready market for the whole lot.  The prospects of the Company are therefore, in my opinion, very bright.”  Unfortunately, as mentioned earlier, his health failed.

W.H.Rocke & Co first imported “Marseilles” tiles to Australia in 1886.  Originally grey in colour, they were soon being made in the now familiar red terra cotta used in what was called the “Queen Anne” style and after a slow start, became the most prolific roofing material used, first in Sydney, then later Melbourne and the rest of Australia.   Rocke was originally a furniture company, but after early imports dried up during the depression of the 1890s, they were taken over by Wunderlich who began making their own version.

Imports of tiles again dried up in 1915 and local makers looked to local engineers to make machinery to produce roofing tiles.  George Foster & Sons eventually produced the “Foster Pentagon Drum Machine’ capable of churning out 5,000 tiles a day.  It is likely that this is what was in use in Oakleigh.  Wunderlich in New South Wales had pioneered the manufacture of the “Marseilles” tile in Australia and by the mid 1930s, they were being made by them in their millions.  Economies of scale meant that smaller companies could not compete and were soon out of business.

Wunderlich was a family business started by Ernest, Julius and Frederick Wunderlich.  The firm grew into a highly successful company with branches in all Australian States and in Wellington, New Zealand. Wunderlich Ltd was the first Australian firm to introduce a 44 hour week without a pay reduction (1908) and in 1914 started a profit-sharing scheme for employees.