09/07/1853 – Patents for inventions. Abridgements of specifications. No 1642 – Mark Sprot and Robert Denholm — Relates to the manufacture of pipes and tubular articles from clay or plastic materials, wherein the sockets or end junction pieces of such articles are formed at the time of moulding or shaping the plain portion of the pipe or another article. To the delivering end of a pug mill is attached the mould for the socket of the pipe, and within it is placed a core bar, made to suit the intended shape of the pipe and socket. The clay is forced, by the action of the pugging apparatus, into the annular space between the end of the core bar and its surrounding socket, whence it issues through an annular space corresponding to the diameter of the main portion of the pipe at the outer end of the socket. When the required length of pipe has been formed, the machine is stopped; and the clay left in the socket mould, at the moment of stopping, becomes the completed socket for the pipe.
Instead of the pug mill arrangement, the direct pressure of a steam or water cylinder, or any known plan of forcing clay, may be used for pressing the clay into and through the mould.
*****************************
In 1831 the Garnkirk Colliery and Brickfield Company was established and targeted the fire clay to be found in deep seams around Garnkirk and Glenboig area of Lanarkshire. The Company was owned by Mark Sprot, Garnkirk House and his brother Thomas Sprot. James Murray and Co appear to have been given the lease over the ground. The seams of clay were reputed to be of the finest quality and in a bed 4 – 19 feet thick.
****************************
Carr and Urwin, manufacturers, Glasgow – (Note – SBH – I have created this page as the 1880 advert below suggests that Car and Urwin manufactured brick making machines in the Glasgow area however I can find no other evidence to suggest this and all references to this company are from the Newcastle, England area….
1845 – John Young from Newton on Ayr, in collaboration with Robert Boyle produced a machine called the ‘Ayrshire Double Acting Patent Tile Machine’. This was adapted from an earlier machine patented by the Marquis of Tweeddale. The device was capable of producing 20,000 drain tiles per day. – Unknown source. 08/10/1845 – Dumfries and Galloway Standard…
Canmore Below – 22/02/1936 – The Scotsman – Fire at Rosebank Ironworks, Cambuslang – James Mitchell & Co. Below – 02/09/1953 – Dundee Courier – Brick machine manufactured by James Mitchell & Co was assembled at Bannockburn and despatched to England. 1968 – Herbertshire Brick Works, Denny – The site had a Mitchell plastic brick…
Below – 02/02/1855 – Kelso Chronicle – To brick and tile makers – For sale – A double-ended tile and brick machine with X dies of different dimensions all got up in the newest style and best system for making and jointing drain pipes and tiles, also common and hollow bricks. The above machine is…
Dunaskin Brick Works, Dalmellington aka Waterside Works. Info Canmore – Original brickworks built for the manufacture of firebricks in the mid-19th century and superseded (probably about 1930) by a new brickworks of the same name, which incorporated the blowing-engine house and two chimneys of the former Dalmellington Ironworks Dunaskin Fire Clay Works –Dalmellington – Dunaskin…
I have added this post for interest’s sake. I do not know if Mr Arthur was Scottish but he invented an early brick making machine that made bricks by pressure only. 08/08/1857 – Paisley Herald and Renfrew Advertiser – Highland Agricultural Society Show – Among the new machines is one for the novel purpose of…
John Ainslie was a farmer from Redheugh, Nr Dalkeith Scotland. in the 1840’s he invented and patented brick and tile making machines. He also invented and patented a procedure and method for drying and burning bricks using kilns which were of the ‘continuous’ type. This was some 9 years prior to Hoffman continuous kilns appearing…
Henry Clayton & Co, – Atlas Works, near Dorset Square, London, N. W. Patent brick, tile, and pipe machines. These are the champion prize machines of the Royal Agricultural Societies of England, Scotland, Ireland, France, Sardinia, Holland, Austria, Belgium, Hanover, etc. They have obtained the — First-class prize at the Great Exhibition of all Nations, London, 1851. Gold…
Many thanks to Graeme Cruickshank who gave me details of the 1869 – 1870 entry below which tied in and confirmed that William Wilson & Son was the same William Wilson who operated out of the Campbellfield Brickworks and pottery. (See also Barlinnie Fireclay Works and Muirhouses Brickworks and Strathbungo Brickworks). (Note – SBH –…
The article that follows was compiled by a member of the Carluke Parish Historical Society. Introduction In the new statistical account (1845/6) volume 6) it was noted that “clay fit for a variety of purposes such as brick making and pottery manufacture” was abundant in the Parish of Carluke, and that “large deposits of white…
