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In Australia, if a journey seems unnecessarily long, we use the expression "take a packed lunch". Saturday was one such journey. Bus, train, walk and I was there. The 'there' being St Peters Church Cooks River (1839). This entire area - during the second half of the 19th century - was littered with brickpits and with brick-making kilns. And this was how one branch of my ancestors was trying to eke out a living. These images are from the old Bedford Brickworks which are now heritage listed and incorporated into Sydney Park at St Peters. My mother grew up in St Peters. |
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| Josiah Gentle brought his family out from England in the 1840s, and after several false starts, evevtually developed the Bedford Brickworks on this site in 1893. They imported two Hoffman kilns, which formed the majority of the building structures. Central to the production procedure was the processing plant, a two storey building with a brick base and a storey post construction with corrugated iron walls. Here all processes preliminary to the operation of the kilns were carried on. Extensive underground flues and dampers led from the kilns to the three chimneys. |
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| The Depression of the early 1930s had a severe impact on the St Peters brickworks scene. Some operations were shut down, other underwent rationalisation. brickmaking never fully recovered. In 1933 the Gentle family was succeeded at the Bedford works by the Austral Brick Company. This Bedford site was closed in 1970. Much of the text for this post was sourced from the "Sydney Park Heritage Impact Statement", page 7. The book, "Turn of the First Clay" had a short run 0f 57 pages in 2009. I have found one copy available, but they want $250 for it. It is also available through the City of Sydney Library down at The Quay. Guess which option I will choose? |
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9 comments:
Well, if I have to guess, I'm thinking you will choose the library. It is near the Quay, so there will be photo ops, and it won't cost hundreds of dollars.
This is a very interesting post, though, Julie. I've never really given brickmaking much thought, and the only brickmaker I ever knew was a nice old man in Mexico who made concrete blocks, one at a time, in the sand outside his house. Not a brickmaker in the British/Australian/Norte Americano sense of the world, but he eked out a living.
I'm so happy to see you back online.
Luv, K
Thanks for this very interesting post and the photos to go with it. It seems to me that your trip proved to worth your time and efforts.
I like the turn your blogging has taken. It is very interesting reading family histories. My first girlfriend I had in Australia, Kerrie, (you may remember her from my posts) her family lived there before moving to "The Shire". Her dad used to work there , I think for Austral. I remember he used to "take a packed lunch" in one of those bags that most manual workers used to take to work. It had a flat bottom and a rounded top with a clasp. I can't remember the proper name for them. Do you remember them?
Yep, Gladstone Bags. My grandpop had one. He called himself a sawyer, which is a peg down from a carpenter. I have written about his gladstone bag on my Ancestry.com family trees. It is HIS family that lived around the Brickpits of the St Peters area even though they mainly worked in wood. I will get to the brickmaker in time ... in time.
Gosh. Life must have been so tough all those years ago. I wonder what you ancestors would have thought about a a book on their kilns have an asking price of $250?
I really like the perspective of the first shot. They were doing some major work with the ponds in the middle of the park, last time I was there and paths were closed. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.
«Louis» posted another in his series on the cars of Australia.
I really like the last shot. Nice warm sunny day. Unlike today. Got the fire going tonight.
Ahh, the weather at the moment is very trying, Joan. Boiling hot in the 30s, and then can barely crack the 20s. Together with the vortex in the Americas, and the storms and surges in the UK ... enough to make one consider climate change.
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