Building a City

Synopsis   

BRICKMAKING had been established for centuries in other countries before Melbourne began its development in the 1840s. As far back as 1571 a charter granted by Queen Elizabeth I to the Tylers and Bricklayers Company stipulated that within a 15-mile (24 kilometres) radius of London the bricks were to measure 9 inches X 4½ inches X 2¼ inches (22.8 X 11.4  X 5.7 centimetres). Beyond this range the size tended to be reduced, but not the price, and Charles I in 1625 issued a proclamation that the London size was mandatory for London and `the confines of the same’. At the time the Hoffman process was adopted in Melbourne in 1870, the machines were geared to the German size bricks, which were 9 X 4½ X 3 inches, almost identical to the bricks of Elizabethan days. After 1900 the German bricks became the standard size.