Brick industry in the Netherlands after 1850
Description
It was the Romans who brought the brickmaking trade to our country around 60 AD. At the Holdeurn near Berg en Dal, the Tenth Legion operated the largest brickworks in our regions at that time. With the retreat of the Romans in the third century, the craft also disappeared, only to be reintroduced to our country around 1150 AD by the Cistercian monks.
For a long time, brickworks formed a characteristic image in the landscape. Along the rivers, it was the chimneys that marked the brick kilns. Between Haastrecht and IJsselmonde, there were once more than 30 brickworks in full operation. Around 1850, the Netherlands had almost 470 brick kilns, where bricks were manufactured seasonally. For centuries, this had been done more or less according to the same process, without any spectacular changes. Bricks shaped by hand, dried on lanes and hedges to be baked off in field-burning field ovens. Brick kilns where working families earned a meagre income with diligent labour. Heavy work and long working days were the hallmarks at a brickworks.
With the advent of the industrial revolution, great changes are taking place and in less than 100 years we see the brickmaking craft transformed into a modern process industry. Whereas a brick used to go through the hand dozens of times during production, nowadays it is the bricklayer who is often the first to touch the brick by hand.
The lecture concludes with a film from 1937 of the then already seriously outdated brick factory "De Spreeuwenhoek" in Ouderkerk aan de IJssel.
Speaker(s)
R.A.J. Vermeulen (Stichting Historie Grofkeramiek, SHG)
Rob Vermeulen has been a board member since 2005. He is intensively involved in the application, history, production and research of brick and coarse building ceramics. Is nationally known as an expert on restoration and renovation of this beautiful material. He is also an avid collector of Dutch bricks with brand or name imprints. He owns a fine and well-documented collection of these bricks, which is displayed in temporary exhibitions in museums and antiquities rooms across the country. He probably has the most extensive database of names and locations of Dutch brickworks, past and present.
In addition, he is a very active amateur historian and author in the field of coarse ceramics. Consequently, he already has many publications and books to his name. In 2009, he presented the digital encyclopaedia of quarry ceramics in the Netherlands for the SHG.
Location
Mijnbouwstraat 120, 2628 RX Delft
Organiser
History of Technology
Histechnica
Name and contact details for information
Further information at dr.ir. Paul van Woerkom (tel. 070 - 3070275 in the evenings) or via the e-mail address below