Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
beginning to fall from popular use. This point is emphasised in the answer to
the question from a Mr Clarry, 'What is a Brick-Axe?'
The Builder
of 26th June 1880 responded (1880, 808):
Sir, - if 'Clarry' had put that question to a bricklayer thirty years ago he would
have smiled at his ignorance. Well, sir, a brick-axe is, or was, an iron tool, like
the ends of two crow-bars joined, flat at each end, and round at the centre,
for the hand to hold it, with about 4 in. of steel at each end, and its length was
about 2 ft.6 in long, according to fancy or a man's ability to use it. The axe was
made to cut gauged brickwork after the bricks had been marked to the mould,
as described by John Philips in some of your former numbers, some years
back, and excellent letters they are, and well worth a bricklayer's time to read
them. The brick-axe is not used now*, as an iron or steel cutter is used to cut
the bricks, it being struck with the club-hammer. This gives much less trouble.
It required some practice to use the brick-axe with skill, and it was much harder
work.
George Brown, Bricklayer.
*We saw it in use not long ago in Islington. - ED.
Regrettably, despite an exhaustive search by the RIBA library on the author's
behalf, back through all the volumes of
The Builder
from 1880 though numer-
ous letters by John Phillips were found regarding other subjects, letters that
related to the use of the brick axe were not located.
The iron or steel cutter struck with the club [lump] hammer, referred to
in Mr Brown's letter was the bolster or boaster. Any craft tool and the estab-
lished practice of its use rarely fall completely from use inside 30 years. Older
craftsmen tend to stick to familiar tools, equipment, and craft techniques that
have served them well down the years, and resist change. Thus the Editor in
his footnote, and Waudby in his drawings, are correct in what they saw.
As Richard Filmer (2007) relates:
The tool is not a common entry in tool catalogues, e.g. in the W. and C. Wynn
of Birmingham, catalogue, of 1820, show no less than six patterns of brick ham-
mers, ranging from 14s.0d. (70pence), to 27s.0d. (£1.35p.), per dozen, but no
sign of the brick axe whatsoever.
Certainly by the 1870s Sheffield tool catalogues were neither displaying nor
selling the large brick axes, only advertising the smaller versions for use as
'brick cleaners'. The emphasis had moved to the brick hammer, with its adze-
like blade as mentioned by Nicholson in 1823, or the 'scotch' (or 'scutch') to
finely cut, dress and finish the brick true to the desired shape, particularly if it
was to be cut-moulded.
