The Hampshire Family Historian | Vol.48 No.3 | December 2021

Local Group Programmes

There is a catalogue on information held and items to help with research and some unwanted birth, marriage and death certificates which can be photocopied for a minimum charge. Finding out about what other Groups are doing within Hampshire. She also mentioned the Facebook page which should be checked regularly! Of course, the big enthusiasm was about the move to the Hampshire Records Office, which she said is going “swimmingly’. She gave information about records held and with more to be added & then catalogued she made a plea for more volunteers. This was the first time a meeting had been Zoomed out of the hall and was enjoyed by members from across the world as well as in the UK. This meeting was full of encouragement and enthusiasm. Forthcoming Meetings:

Christmas Social – In-person

16th December

2022

No details available

Contact: Organisers: Fiona Ranger and Kay Lovell Email: international@hgs-online.org.uk

All meetings are via Zoom and at various UK times to allow overseas members to join in, International Group

Organisers Fiona Ranger and Kay Lovell (August) 20 million bricks: The history of Bursledon Brickworks – Richard Newman. This was a talk of two halves – the history of the brickworks and the ways of working there. Hooper & Ashby was a Southampton-based builders’ merchants business. Originally from Staines in Middlesex, both families were Quakers and were brought into partnership in Southampton when Edward Hooper, who began the original business, married Harriet Ashby in 1860. Having settled on a site at Lower Swanwick, on the banks of the River Hamble where there was plenty of 'brick earth', Robert and Edward Ashby built Bursledon Brickworks in 1897. The bricks were originally made under the name Hooper & Co., before becoming The Bursledon Brick Co. Limited or (B.B.C. Ltd.) in 1903. Following WW2, the company amalgamated with the Sussex and Dorking Brick Company and in 1959 became Redland Holdings Ltd. Clay is not mined like coal; it is “won” by digging out from pits which could reach as deep as 50 feet or more. All the work was done by hand until the 1930s and there was no protective clothing. Men in the ‘clay gang’ wore ordinary flat caps and waistcoats but did have steel plates under their shoes. The clay was carted from the brickfields to conveyor belts which took it to the machine house where it was moulded and cut by machine before being dried in the drying rooms and eventually fired in the kilns. Much of the work was dangerous. “Boys”, any age from 7 years to 70, were part of the ‘machine gang’ and one job was to pick out stones from the clay – whilst it was being fed into one of the machines! It was hot work in the kilns.

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