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Bloodworth and his bricks · Urban Ambling

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Arrived in a convict ship and departed with a state funeral.
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This is the story of James Bloodworth and his bricks.
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Hello and welcome to Urban Ley.
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Make here and today unusually.
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Um, I'm joined by my son Duncan, uh, which is most appropriate because it was
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in fact something he did that alerted me to the existence of James Bloodworth
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because I'd never heard of him before.
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So, uh, over to Duncan to explain how all this came about.
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Thank you Mata for having me.
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Hello everybody in Urban Ling.
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I am Duncan, the son of Mata, AKA Maketa son.
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my father and I went on a journey through the rocks.
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We went ling.
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As you do when you are urban ars.
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And we discussed how the bricks of the rocks were made in their history because
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if you walk around Sydney, you see it's such an integral part of the story is the
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building materials of the city itself.
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Um, during that process, we discovered James Bloodworth.
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We're actually looking.
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Initially on a, on a bit of a goose chase with Mr. Francis, the
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architect, but when we really got stuck into it, Francis Greenway.
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Francis Greenway, that's right.
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When we got stuck into it, we discovered Mr. Bloodsworth, who, uh,
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is probably the unsung hero of the, uh, city of Sydney, if not the country.
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Yeah.
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Well, Doug, it's interesting you say that because I. A bloke called Ron Ringer, who
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is described as an industrial historian.
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And I must say I hadn't heard of that before, said this, and it
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really comes back to what you just said, and he said this forgets the
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city's love affair with sandstone.
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From the very start, most of Sydney was built out of bricks that's a
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very interesting, uh, observation and, uh, in fact the reason we're
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out in the rocks is you very kindly bought me the trip for my birthday,
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which must have been I think in 2024.
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and in addition to just seeing all the brick work when we were on to drown.
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I'm sure we saw a plaque, which we did.
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We did see a plaque, but unfortunately we both looked, subsequently
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find the plaque, but we can't.
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But it's a bit of a Mandela effect, right?
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'cause we all thought it was the Francis Greenway.
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And then once doing research, we realized it's all about James
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Bloodworth when it comes down to bricks.
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Then we thought, oh, there was the Plath to James Bloodworth.
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We went, I went looking and found Francis Greenway.
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So anyway, we got there in the end and we discovered probably one of
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the most underrated, interesting figures of Australian history.
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Yes.
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Well he's certainly that.
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And I've found the end by notes.
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Which I can now give you.
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Sydney was built out of bricks and millions of them.
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So you think I'd learned to make my lines continuous.
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Okay.
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But interestingly they in fact brought bricks with them from England and that was
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on the Scarborough, and they bought 5,000 bricks when they came in the first fleet.
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So they, they clearly knew that they were gonna need them, but that
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quantity of bricks might have built you a reasonable safe food store.
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So.
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Um, and of course the, you know, the colony was in a dreadful state from early
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on because there was limited supplies they brought, they were having trouble growing
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anything that convicts understandably, uh, weren't madly keen about doing anything.
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So they were really in trouble.
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So a bloodworth indeed was a blessing.
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Yes.
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Now what, what happened is that Governor Philip pretty quickly realized
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they had a problem and that the 5,000 bricks wasn't gonna do much.
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So within a couple of weeks of the, uh, the settlement, the European
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settlement starting, uh, they went hunting ground for clay, which is
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obviously the basic necessity for bricks.
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And they found two creeks running into Cockle Bay, which is.
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Part of Darling Harbor, and this would sort of be about where Chinatown now is.
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And they found quite good workable clay and unbelievably within two
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weeks of finding the clay, um, they had between 20 and 30,000 bricks.
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Ready to fire.
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Now all of that was due to Bloodworth, uh, with his skills and also his industry.
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He, as I just said, when we were talking, a lot of the convicts, understandably,
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were quite put out about having been dragged halfway around the world to what
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must've seemed like the end of the world and weren't very interested in working.
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But Bloodworth was a. Different sort of cut of a person.
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And he, he was keen and he got stuck into it, and that's really
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why he, he had the success he did.
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Now, just in terms of knowing a bit about Bloodworth we know that he
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was born in Kingston on Thames, uh, on the 7th of March ninth, 1759.
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uh, we know that he married at one stage a young lady called Jane Marks,
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and at the time of their marriage, Bloodworth was 23, as was Jane, and
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that was on the 9th of December, 1782.
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Now they had four children between that time, uh, when, uh, they married and the
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time when he was, uh, convicted of the crimes, which we'll come to in a minute,
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which was on the 3rd of October, 1785.
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So poor old Jane Marxist experience of marriage was marrying a man, uh,
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having four children in the space of.
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Barely three years.
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Uh, then he gets convicted, uh, and gets transported.
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And that's the last you ever saw of him.
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Uh, so it was a, it was a pretty cruel old world.
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Now we don't know whether Bloodworth or what he'd done before he left
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England, but clearly he must have had experience in brick banking.
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Now.
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Uh, he was convicted at the court in Escher, in Surrey on
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the 3rd of October, 1785 and, uh, precisely what he was convicted of.
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Some say forgery.
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And that could be right, because I did hear it was fraud.
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Fraud, yeah.
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But I've heard that it was a roll of silk.
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Well, that's interesting because roll of silk fraud, forgery, and
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of course Greenway was a forger.
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That's what he was uh, transported for.
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But the other crime of which is mentioned by some is that he had the
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temerity to steal a cock and to hen.
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Mm. And now such were the distorted views of property of the world in
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those days that that heinous crime of stealing a few chooks was thought to be
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requiring seven years of transportation.
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So that's what he got.
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And as I said, poor old, um, Jane Marks and the kids.
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He just disappears.
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So he, uh, he came and as I said, he clearly, I think he was picked straight
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away by Governor Philip, probably because of his attitude, also because
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they found out he had these skills
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mentioned before.
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They brought some Brits with them, but it wasn't enough to
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build all the buildings, so, yeah.
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Uh, what did they build out of?
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Initially they had, uh, crude w and DOB shelters with mud and sticks.
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Yeah.
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But there's one thing that even modern, modern Britain's, uh, surprised
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at, and they come to Australia.
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Is that it doesn't rain constantly, but when it does,
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it comes down with a vengeance.
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Yeah.
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With the hard flooding pressure that just basically washed away the mud on
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sticks, wattle, and do huts that they had clearly this needed to be rectified.
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So they needed to improve the building materials, which
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is where the bricks came in.
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So they had the, the brick layer brick maker.
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James Bloodworth on board, and they also brought with them some equipment for, uh,
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making bricks like the presses and things.
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Now, I guess in that time would mean like simple molds, simple
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pressing equipment by hand.
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So they began, they found a source of clay, brick, field hill,
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and they started making bricks.
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The first bricks were not great because they didn't have kilns,
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so they had to make crappy bricks, which they then used to make kilns.
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Of course.
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Yeah, that's right.
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And they, they made the kilns out of them.
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Then they made better bricks and, you know, progressively
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built up the industry there.
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And then with these bricks once they got to the sort of correct quality that they
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needed, they started to build with 'em.
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Uh, and it's, you know, it's very tactile experience.
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If you go around, uh, Sydney, especially older parts of Sydney
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and look around, you will see.
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Bricks upon bricks, upon bricks, upon bricks, just absolutely everywhere.
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And some of those may well have been made by James Bloodworth himself.
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Yeah.
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Well
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it's interesting you say that duck, because, uh, even and just as he
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was doing the brick making and, and doing that, he was also building.
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And he was obviously a bit of a builder.
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Mm. And he's credited with building the first government house and
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that was on the corner of what is now Philip and Bridge Streets.
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And it's where the Museum of Sydney is.
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And thankfully due to agitation by citizens at the time, they didn't
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allow the actual site to be built over.
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And if you go to the Museum of Sydney, you can there see a part of the foundation.
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So you would certainly be looking.
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At Bricks that were certainly laid by Jones Bloodworth, even
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if they weren't made by it.
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So you mentioned Brick Hill and that's really that area
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just outside the town hall.
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And that hill that runs down George Street, down towards
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Central, that's all Brick Hill and across, sort of towards, uh,
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Chinatown.
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And it may well be less of a hill due to
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the
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mining operations.
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Well, that's very true.
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That's very true.
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I think they.
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Started with the clay down more near the creek near Chinatown where Chinatown now
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is, and then gradually worked up the hill.
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But interestingly, brick Hill Hill ended up being a terrible
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place, which eventually one of the governors finally, I think in about.
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The 1830s said, enough is enough, and, uh, we're gonna move you out to further out.
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And they then pushed them out.
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And of course, that's why we ended up having all those brick pits
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at Tempe and, uh, St. Peters.
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St. Peters.
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Yeah.
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But
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I've heard that it was better.
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There was a better time What out there?
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Yeah.
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They, they were able to reduce much better bricks.
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Yeah.
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But, um, one of the governors, whoever was governor in the 1830s was so
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concerned about the, uh, the brick works on Brick Field Hill, and that's,
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he's the one who laid out Hyde Park and he had surveyors very clearly, mark.
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The boundaries of Hyde Park on the Western and southern side.
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And he made it very clear that if any brick layer stepped on there, then uh,
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that would cause huge troubles for them.
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Yeah.
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But Brick Field Hill, the problem was of course it was, it was an enormously.
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Industrial place.
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There was a lot of dust.
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And of course there was all the attendant pubs and everything else, but one of
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the real problems was they used to have something called brick field or southerly.
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So when a good southerly blew wall and blew across brick field hill and
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blow all the dust and muck over the infant colony, so it, it wasn't, uh.
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Exactly.
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Much longer.
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And that may have happened
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every
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afternoon in the summer.
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Well, it could've, it certainly would've happened this afternoon,
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but, uh, due together, I think we need to come back a bit.
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Yeah.
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Think about what, uh, ties this all together.
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What ties all the bricks together?
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Ah, so we understand that they had the bricks and they were using the
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bricks to replace the Waterloo door and make more weather proofs to
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higher quality sturdy buildings.
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Still had the rain problem because bricks on their own.
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You need, you need another ingredient, you need the mortar.
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But what do you need to make mortar?
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You need lime.
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Lime.
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Where do they get lime from?
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There was no ready supply of lime.
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There was no mine.
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Uh, I mean, I'm not entirely sure where they get it now.
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I'm sure we just dig it out the ground somewhere, but, uh,
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it's an interesting point.
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Yeah.
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It must be made.
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It's made an alarm.
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K. I
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Now, if you've ever had a Sunday lunch, you may have had champagne
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and something else called an oyster.
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Very popular around the, uh, Sydney and surrounding regions.
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Uh, what a oyster's got.
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They got a shell.
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Yeah.
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So they used to get the shell and they crushed the shells up.
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And that's how they'd make wine.
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Yeah.
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So, yeah.
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This led to an oyster shortage eventually, and it wasn't
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because they were eating them.
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They were fueling their building practices.
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As you can see, they didn't eradicate them.
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We have.
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Many, many oysters.
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Luckily we all enjoy eating.
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But, um, that's, uh, another tactile link to the past is next time you're
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having an oyster, just remember that, um, without them they wouldn't
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have been able to build anything.
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Help build
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Sydney.
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Yeah, that's right.
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So it could be said that Sydney was built on oysters and bloodworth.
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That's right.
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Bricks.
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There you go.
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That might be a new advertising thing.
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Uh.
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Yeah, but they, they had to get away from the oysters because
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they almost, uh, didn't extinct.
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Yeah.
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Well just dealing with Bloodworth history again a bit.
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He was so, um, so.
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Such a great worker, such a great servant of the crown that Governor
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Philip, in fact, pardoned him in 1790.
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So I mean, he only got here in 88 and by 90 he was pardoned.
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He built government house in 9 17 89, and I mean that probably wouldn't
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have done him any harm for getting his pardon that he built the a nice house.
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Mm. He also built some barracks as well.
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And then on the 1st of September.
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Superintendent of brick makers and layers, and we mustn't forget all the
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people who would've laid the bricks.
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And in the same time as he was pardoned, he began living with Sarah Bellamy in
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what was then called South Street, but would now be O'Connell Street, which.
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Oddly enough is the strength where I started work really my first day
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of work was in a building in two O'Connell Street, which doesn't,
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and you know, where did some of those bricks come from?
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You never know.
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Well, that's right.
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Yeah.
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So, uh, it was 19 O'Connell.
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He was thought to live.
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Now, Sarah.
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Bellamy had been a convict that came out in the lady pen.
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Now, once again, this same pattern I suppose it was just the times,
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but they then had eight children four of whom died, uh, in infancy.
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And sadly, uh, he died prematurely.
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And we'll come to that shortly.
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But when he did die, his youngest child was about a week old.
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Brutal times.
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Yeah.
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And again the governor was so pleased with him when he gave him the land grabs
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which was about 25 acres and it's down on Old Canterbury Road, sort of on the the
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boundary of Junction Road and Canterbury Road, sort of the bottom of Summer Hill.
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But interestingly, just this morning before we started, I was just looking at.
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Old plan of the grants from that time, and I noticed that to the
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southeast, there was a grant in 1794 to West Bellamy, so I assumed that's
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his, his partner Sarah Bellamy.
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So she picked up a grant too.
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Quite odd.
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It has to be her because it's, it's too big a coincidence that
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that Bloodworth is in one spot and right next to him is Cere Bellamy.
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So he, uh Oh yeah.
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Yeah.
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Quite extraordinary.
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And I'm sorry, I said 25 acres.
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It was, uh, it was 50 acres.
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And over time that rose to be with other grants, 245 acres.
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And, uh, he farm it.
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For a while as well as having his government job as superintendent
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of bricks, layers and bricks.
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And, um, such was the esteem in which he was held in the colony
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that in 18 two he's made a sergeant in the Sydney Loyal Association.
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so sadly, um, he died on the, at O'Connell Street South Street on the 23rd of March,
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1,804, at about the age of 45 years.
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So he came to the colony in 1788.
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So in the space of 16 years, he went from being a convict to being so well regarded
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that the then governor Philip Gidley King.
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Paid the state, paid for the funeral, and in essence gave him probably
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one of the earliest state funerals.
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And the, the obituaries at the time said it was a huge thing and that a
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huge number of the members of the colony came out to pay their tribute to him.
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And in his, um, funeral possession from LL Street to what was then called
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the Town Cemetery, which is down now, it was where the town hall now is.
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He, uh, the members of the Loyal Sydney Association escorted
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his coffin with muffle drums.
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So it was quite.
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Quite a significant event.
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And in fact, he was buried with military honors, so Yeah.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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An extraordinary thing that a man commits whichever heinous crime it
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was, uh, and, and achieves all that.
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But then it's entirely forgotten.
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It's an amazing thing.
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It,
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it's, it's, yeah, it's super interesting researching this thinking that,
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yeah, okay, you're in the rocks.
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It's full of bricks, and they talk about Francis Greenway and that.
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It was the, the sort of mixed up memory we had.
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But when you look at James Budworth, there was just one little plaque in Yeah.
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Western regional, little country town in New South Wales.
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And it's like this guy, it just, it, there just probably wouldn't
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be like an Australia without his efforts like modern Australia.
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And, and yeah.
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It's just
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not spoken of at all.
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Can I mention another thing?
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As I said, we said Brick Hill sort of runs from Bathurst Street down
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the hill and in that block, Golburn George Pitt where there's now I think,
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or towers or residential buildings.
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But that was, uh, the site of.
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A retail, a very large apartment store called Horton's and Horton
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Brothers, and it occupied two acres.
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And when it was built back in about the 1920s or 1930s, it was the largest
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building in the southern hemisphere.
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The largest Really?
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Yes, the largest building in the southern hemisphere.
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Even defeating things in Latin America, which was quite wealthy at the time.
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That's,
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but in terms of just the area covered, because it was a two acre site, so there
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was sort of a two acre footprint of a building, and interestingly, it ended
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at the northern end on Swan Street.
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Went looking for Swan Street but couldn't find it.
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But apparently it was a little cul-de-sac off George Street up
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near where Bathurst Street now is, was called Swan Street because
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there once been a Swan Hotel there.
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So there we go.
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So look, that's I think, the story of James
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for your company and as I promised little facts.
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And the little fact for the day, uh, or this episode is St. James Church.
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Now, St. James Church is that wonderful church.
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The, in the eastern end of King Street, opposite Phillips Street.
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It's a church I'm very fond of.
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It's a wonderful church, both outside and inside.
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And I suppose I walk past it nearly every day in my working life.
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So I know it very well.
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But interestingly, it, it was again, designed by Greenway who.
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You know, the forger who did well.
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And, but it was originally designed to be the courthouse.
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Now what happened is later it became a church and the Supreme
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Court was built next to it.
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But it's a wonderful building.
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It was built in about, uh, between 1820 and 1824.
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And it's still in existence.
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It's still a church.
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And had has been in continuous use as a church since its concentration in 1824.
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So of course it recently passed.
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Its 200 years.
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And of course it was built out of bricks, the whole thing.
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That's right.
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Well, thank you Dun, and thank you.
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Thank you all.
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That's it for now.
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Stay Well choose to be happy and always take time to Apple.
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Until next time.
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Cheerio.