The Shergolds

The Shergolds

The story of the Oakleigh brick works would be incomplete without mentioning the Shergold family.  At the end of its operational life in Oakleigh, the family were Directors of Evans Brothers.  They were also shareholder in Gambles at their end. 

Cometh the hour, cometh the man.  So goes the old saying.  Brickmaking is an essential industry but could have all but disappeared in this State had it not been for the Shergolds steering the industry through this period of huge change.

They were the drivers behind Brick and Pipe Industries.  Albert Charles Phillip Shergold and his son John Phillip Shergold and Peter Ralph Shergold were the talented businessmen.  Albert, a Chartered Accountant was a Director in Brick and Pipe Industries.  John was their Chief Executive Officer and Peter was their General Sales Manager.

Mr Albert Charles Phillip Shergold,  Mr Rupert Hamer, Premier of Victoria and Mr Richard Shergold at the opening of the Cragieburn plant.

Albert was born on the 27^th of April 1910 in the inner Melbourne suburb of Carlton to Albert Edward Shergold and Amy (Litchfield).  He pursued a clerical career in Melbourne and Sydney before becoming a Chartered Accountant and later an Auditor before becoming involved in a number of brick works.

Australia in the 1970s was a place of great change.  Eventually, all of the Oakleigh brick works closed and some of them were absorbed into Brickworks Limited. This was a group of Australian companies that manufactured building products, primarily bricks and roof tiles. Brickworks was founded by a number of Sydney brick manufacturers in 1934 in response to the Great Depression. It was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange in 1962.  The companies that make up Brickworks Ltd included Austral Bricks, Austral Masonry, Austral Precast, Bristile Roofing and Auswest Timbers.

Brickworks was Australia's largest brick manufacturer with annual revenue in excess of $5.5 billion dollars and over 1500 employees. It was 49.49% owned by Washington H Soul Pattinson.  It was called Brick Industries Ltd from 3^rd of July 1959 to 17^th of July 1964 when the name was changed and it became Brick and Pipe Industries Limited.  They were taken over by Arnsberg Pty Ltd (007 213 836) on the 11^th October 1989, a subsidiary of the Goldberg Group. 

Abraham Goldberg was a Polish migrant with a background in the textile industry.  His ownership only lasted seven months as Goldberg intended using these assets to settle his ($1.5 billion ) debts, but this failed, so did the group, and Goldberg returned to Poland to avoid fraud charges.  There was no extradition treaty with Poland and Abe went on to develop a property empire there.  Australian creditors are still waiting for their money.  Curiously, Citibank, one of his largest creditors in Australia is a tenant in one of his Warsaw buildings.

The Receiver sold Brick and Pipe Industries to the Pioneer Building Products, a subsidiary of Pioneer International.  Fortunately, an outstanding manager, Jack Peterson revived the companies but the Brunswick property closed.  (Jack was also responsible for building their new plant at Cragieburn).  In 1996 all of their divisions were merged into “Pioneer Building Products.”  In 1998, a UK based company “Hanson” took over Pioneer International.  They were really interested in Pioneer’s international quarrying businesses.  In 2001, Bristile, a West Australian company took over the tile manufacturing businesses.  Like many acquisitions of the time, this one was also short-lived because they sold out to Brickworks Limited, a major shareholder.