BRICK PRESSED STATE BRICKWORKS
c. 1920Machine pressed red brick. Single frog at top with moulded text inside [STATE / BRICKWORKS]. The brick has a moulded curve at the top left side.
In the 1890s, the Armadale to Byford area was identified as having excellent clay and shale deposits for brick making and by the early 1900s had two private commercial brickworks operating at Cardup and Armadale. In 1913, the Labor Scaddan Government, who after winning government in 1911 implemented a program of state run enterprises, opened the State Brickworks in Byford and extended the Armadale line to the town so bricks could be easily transported from the site.
In November 1950, a second State Brickworks site was opened in Armadale between Southwestern Highway and the railway line and by 1952 it was producing enough bricks to build 80 homes a week.
In 1961, both State Brickworks sites were sold to the construction company Hawker Siddeley Group Ltd, with the Byford site closed in 1964 and the Armadale site operating as a brickworks through to the early 2000s.
This brick was found under the donors house in Collie. The house has a fireplace which is made with similar bricks, with the curved end, and it is assumed that this is a spare brick from the making of the fireplace. The house was constructed in 1926
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STATE BRICKWORKS
Brickmaking has been an important industry within the City of Armadale from the early to mid 1800s to today. It started with families making hand pressed bricks from locally sourced clay for homes and community buildings. In the late 1890s and early 1900s commercial production of machine made bricks started and soon the district was supplying bricks for the entire state. In 1913 the Scaddan Labor Government opened the first government brickworks Byford. It was a part of a program of government operated factories opened during this period.
