by Dr Noris Ioannou

Stroll about your Park Lands and in certain locations, you may come across sparse scatterings of shards, that is broken bits of pottery-and occasionally fragments of bricks. 

These are relics of activities that occurred in your Park Lands long ago. The brick fragments could conceivably date back 185 years, when your Park Lands were the site of brickmaking, within a year after arrival of the first settlers.

The shards you might find would be a mixture of mostly plain brown, handmade domestic earthenware and stoneware jars and the like.

They were produced by five or six potteries that became established from the late 1840s in the emerging villages outside of your Park Lands, including Hindmarsh, Bowden, and Magill.

The coarser shards of the Adelaide-made wares are always found intermingled with fragments of finer white china, sometimes decorated in the ubiquitous ‘Willow’ blue pattern, and clearly are from the latter 19th century English and European imports.

How did these pottery and china shards end up on your Park Lands?

From the late 1840s as Adelaide grew and waste became ubiquitous, they were part of the domestic rubbish collections carted to various spots on your Park Lands where they were dumped on former creek beds and depressions.

Some locations such as Park 23 alongside the West Terrace Cemetery, and Parks 13 and 14 in the east became regular dump sites for decades.

However, there was another activity, far more damaging to your Park Lands than their use as household waste dumps! Back to the brick fragments.

Colonel William Light had been issued with detailed instructions from the Colonization Commissioners to find the best site for the first settlement Adelaide.

The ideal site would have (8th on a list of advantages) “a supply of building materials, such as timber, stone, or brick earth [i.e. clay] and lime.”

Clay for making bricks was amply present on the Adelaide plains, including the site of the present City and your Park Lands.

Once the first settlers arrived on 7 November 1836, and the site of Adelaide was fixed, the task of constructing suitable habitations was a priority.

Between the two limestone hills of North and South Adelaide the wide River Torrens valley revealed an abundance of clay, which was immediately exploited, as was limestone.

When, and where precisely were bricks, first made and fired in South Australia, and by whom? This was the question I asked myself in 1982 when I started researching and writing my first book ‘Ceramics in SA 1836 to 1986: from folk to studio pottery’.

It proved to be an interesting story which can only be briefly sketched out here. 

The letters of David McLaren, the commercial manager of the South Australian company, reveal considerable detail. It was decided to start making bricks “at the extreme east corner of the Park Land, where it is intercepted by the Torrens”. This is close by where the present Hackney Bridge is situated.

Light had a say regarding this spot - as did Governor Hindmarsh: both uncharacteristically agreed! 

On 7 August 1837, three brickmakers began work, and McLaren could write in his letter to the Colonization Commissioners in London on 4 November that:

“The making of bricks has fairly commenced – on the 26 October. They had about 2000 made -the clay turned out even better than expected.”

By 21 of November 1837 there were “22,000 bricks in the kiln…” The actual firing, the very first in the colony, occurred between the 21st and 24th November 1837.

Thanks to an eye witness account we can be transported back 186 years to that day in late November 1837, on that part of your Park Lands, and visualise the scene. Following the firing and cooling, and as the handmade bricks were being collected, one of the labourers working on the site recollected in his later memoirs, that:

“there was a hot wind blowing at the time and as the bricks were taken out of the kiln a man belonging to one of the survey parties who was standing on the corner of the kiln with his flagpole to mark the line that divides the company section from the parklands, was completely covered… with red sand!” 

The South Australia Company’s brick operations were the first. However within months, a handful of enterprising individuals had also started making and firing bricks on your Park Lands as well.

This was occurring along the river banks, west of the S.A Company’s venture. Very soon, large clay pits appeared, dangerous at night. The water from the Torrens was becoming polluted, as was the air from the kiln firings. Trees on the Park Lands were disappearing, quickly. The area became very blighted in appearance.

On 14 May 1838, a Government order required all parties occupying the Park Lands to remove themselves within two months. However, it took six years, until May 1844, until all brickmaking on your Park Lands had ceased.

Next time you chance to be near the Hackney Bridge, at the eastern end of Mistletoe Park / Tainmuntilla (Park 11) think of the carts carrying clay from the river bed, the labourers toiling making bricks, the billowing smoke, and the hot wind blowing red sand over one of Colonel William Light’s survey men!

About the author

Dr Noris Ioannou is a cultural historian whose writing has focussed on material folk culture and the decorative arts and crafts, particularly the way migrant traditions, place and innovation, have shaped Australia’s identity and heritage. His 8 books include Ceramics in South Australia 1836-1986: from folk to studio pottery (Wakefield Press 1986); Australian Studio Glass: The Movement, its Makers and Their Art; and, The Barossa Folk: Germanic Furniture and Craft Traditions in Australia ; as well as the cultural travel book: Barossa Journeys: Into A Valley of Tradition, (Wakefield Press 1986), now in its third edition. His latest cultural history, Vernacular Visions a Folklife History of Australia: art, diversity, story-telling, was published by Wakefield Press in 2021.