Imagine, you are a convict. You didn't do anything particularly horrible - you were hungry so you stole some food. It's not like you were the only one around doing it, you were just unlucky because you got caught. Transported to Australia - the other side of the world. You're only 15! Now, you you spend your days making the 'building blocks of the new colony' - bricks. You suppose you should count yourself lucky - you could have been put on a road gang.
When I took this convict brick to show the children, the reaction was really interesting. I told them that this weeks item was 'a brick' and they were not impressed. When I showed them the brick though, and told them that it was a convict brick, they became more interested, especially when they realised that the convict had left a fingerprint behind. This wasn't just some building or road made by the convicts, they could literally put their hand where a convict had been. They also realised that bricks might be a common sight today, but they were in a very real way, the building blocks of Australia.
Today, we tend to overlook the importance of bricks in our lives. We see thousands of them, every day so they aren't something we think about. They were so important to the colony though that even though they forgot to bring enough women's clothes with them, the First Fleet did carry 5000 bricks, as well as 12 of the moulds they would need to use to create more, and even a skilled brick maker, James Bloodsworth! One of the most important things which needed to be done in the early days of the colony was to find a site where bricks could be made. It would need to have a good supply of 2 things, clay and water. A good site was soon found, in the area between what we call 'Haymarket' and 'Darling Harbour'. At the time, the place was called Brickfield.
James Bloodsworth, a convict and skilled brickmaker was put in charge of a gang of labourers who made the colonies first bricks. Of course, we don't know if he was purposely chosen for the First Fleet because of his skills or simply because he was a convict, but it was certainly lucky for the colony! According to the diary of surgeon G. B. Worgan, Bloodsworth and his labourers were able to make between 20000 and 30000 bricks by May 13, 1788 and had begun to build a kiln to fire them. That may not seem a lot today, but remember that was less than 5 months after the First Fleet first arrived in Australia and all the bricks were made one at a time, by hand! The first brick huts were put up not long after the colony was first settled, with the first of them appearing by May, 1788. If you would like to know more about the first brickmakers, click here.
Convict bricks are not nearly as sturdy as our modern bricks, and often, like the one I showed the children, they are crumbling away. This was because, although some bricks were properly fired so that they became hard, many were only fired for a very short time, or simply left in the sun to dry. It was often difficult to transport them to a kiln, so sun drying was simply easier, if not as hardy. They also often contain lumps of rock or gravel which make them less stable. The brick makers did put identifying marks into their bricks (for example, the diamond in my brick) so that people could identify who made the brick and who owned it. If you would like to learn more about convict bricks, click here.