Notable People of Collingwood

Collingwood Notables Database

Augustus Fritsch

c. 1837 - 1898

Brickmaker

Prussian-born Augustus Fritsch started as a small scale brickmaker in Abbotsford, and eventually became a partner in a large Hawthorn enterprise. Fritsch had arrived with his parents and siblings in 1849. Unlike most of the Prussian migrants of this period who were of the Lutheran faith, they were Catholics. By 1856 he owned a house in Victoria Street, just near Brick Lane, and was working as a brickmaker.

If the salubrious stretch of land bordering the Yarra River had originally attracted well-to-do residents who constructed substantial houses on large landholdings, in the 1850s it came to the attention of noxious industry proprietors who needed a supply of water and a convenient drain for waste. While brickmaking was less noxious than the tanning, wool-scouring and soapmaking industries which soon proliferated, the fumes from the kilns polluted the air. Brick Lane, now called Flockhart Street, is shown on an 1858 map as largely taken up on both sides with clay pits and associated sheds and kilns. There were a number of other brickmakers in the area, many also of German origin, such as Robert Dehnert, Peter Bashdahl and William Melchior. From around 1853 Joseph Shirley combined the trades of brickmaker and licensed victualler, as owner/publican of the Brickmakers Arms, where a number of brickmakers lodged. After it was replaced with a new hotel around 1867, Fritsch bought the old pub building.

In 1863 Augustus married Christina Holzer, daughter of another Prussian family; her father Martin was making bricks in nearby Burnley Street Richmond. In addition to his brick house and brickyard in Victoria Street, Augustus acquired vacant land in Grosvenor Street, and several brickfields in Brick Lane, as well as purchasing the defunct Brickmakers Arms from Dehnert, to be used for manufacturing. In August 1870 he stood for Collingwood Council and was elected unopposed in the Victoria ward.

Brickmaking at this period in the early to mid-nineteenth century was carried out on a small scale, not needing a great deal of capital. As the century progressed larger brickmakers began to dominate and buy out smaller concerns. Technological changes led to larger production units with the introduction of brickmaking machinery in the 1880s so that areas such as Abbotsford were no longer seen as viable. Most of the Abbotsford brickmakers retired or moved on to other employment, apart from Robert Dehnert whose last drying shed and brick kiln can be seen on the 1901 MMBW Detail Plan. Fritsch on the other hand went on to bigger and better things, moving operations, and the family residence, from Abbotsford to Hawthorn around 1876. He set up in Riversdale Road near the brickworks of brothers Johann, Martin and Anton Holzer, his relations by marriage. In 1883 they amalgamated on a ten-acre site, forming the Upper Hawthorn Brick Company.

Augustus Fritsch was fond of bowling and collapsed suddenly at the Richmond bowling green in 1898. With an estate worth about £23,000, he made a number of bequests to many orphanages and Catholic institutions including the Convent of the Good Shepherd in Abbotsford and the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Hawthorn, where the family were parishioners, and the Brigidine Convent in Beechworth. As well as numerous Hawthorn properties he had retained some rental property in Abbotsford that he had purchased during his residency there, owning four semi-detached brick cottages in Grosvenor Street.

His son Francis Valentine was also a brickmaker and inherited half of his father’s quarter share in the company, while the eldest son Augustus Andrew Fritsch (1864-1933) became an architect, specialising in ecclesiastical buildings. He designed the spire of St John’s Catholic Church in Clifton Hill, thus providing the finishing touch to the church in 1907. He worked on a number of Brigidine convents; younger daughter Christina found her vocation as a Brigidine nun, taking the name Sister Aloysius, and became Reverend Mother at the Brigidine Convent in Beechworth where she had been enrolled as a boarder from 1891.

The brickmakers are memorialised in Fritsch Holzer Park in Rose Street East Hawthorn, their former clay pits having been purchased by Hawthorn Council in 1972. They served as a landfill site until eventually a park was created in 1995. Of the Abbotsford brickmaking enterprises no visible signs remain. The clay pits were used as rubbish tips for some years. Grosvenor Street was soon lined with houses, Brick Lane had been re-christened Flockhart Street as early as 1863 and even the Brickmakers Arms had its name changed to the Terminus.

Life Summary

Birth Date	Birth Place
c. 1837	Silesia, Prussia (now Poland)

Spouse Name	Date of Marriage	Children
Christina Holzer, 1845 - 1901	1863	Augustus Andrew 1866 – 8 June 1933; Christine Theresa 1867 - 1942; Francis Valentine 1871 - 1906; Silvester Phillippus 1876; Christina Caroline (Sister Mary Aloysius) 1878 - 1922; Joseph Bernard 1881; Charles John 1882 or 1883 - 1958.