In the 1980s, an academic, in a report to the Glen Innes Municipal Council, said the Glen Innes brickworks – the only ones in Australia wholly operating by steam power – were seen as an important part of Australia's industrial heritage.
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John Falconer Willis and W. Newman started the first brickworks about 1872 at a quarry at Bell Rock.
Quarrying, pugging and moulding was all done by hand.
Blue was considered the highest quality of all bricks produced at Glen Innes...
With the availability of high-quality clay and the construction of the New England railway which reached Glen Innes in 1884, these bricks were keenly sought after for bridges, sidings, railway cottages and stations.
It is thought the business moved to the Thomas street site about round 1898-1900.
Despite lean times for the building industry in most other country districts during 1923-1924, Glen Innes saw over two million bricks used in local construction.
The following year, a new Hodgkinson press increased the monthly maximum output from 50,000 to 60,000 with the same workforce of nine men.
John’s son Arthur Bickham Willis was the manager from 1922-1941.
The Willis family has played an important part in the early development of Glen Innes with the old hospital, now the Land of the Beardies History House Museum and Research Centre; the present hospital, the Presbyterian (now Uniting) Church Hall, and Manse; buildings at the convent, public and high schools being among the many brick buildings constructed from their bricks.
Bricks were made from three sources of clay – the quarry behind the Thomas street factory, the ironstone clay quarry on the Strathbogie road, and at Emmaville cream clay from dumps of overburden belonging to tin mines.
This last was the only clay that was not blended – it produced light cream to buff-coloured bricks.
Blue was considered the highest quality of all bricks produced at Glen Innes and they varied from grey blue to deep blue black.
Floor, yard or path bricks and ornamental bricks were also produced.
The brickworks no longer operate. As well as the Willis family, McMackenzie and Sons, Ben Wade, Potter and Greenaway, Glen Innes Municipal Council and John Marr have all been part of the brickworks story.
Read more Glen Innes history:
