Brickfielders and Bursters

grandfather’s rain-making ritual faithfully Lambert, J (ed), 1996. Macquarie book of recounted by an old bushman in the slang: Australian slang in the 1990s, “Aboriginalities” section of the Bulletin (Huie, Macquarie Library, Macquarie University, 2011). NSW, 276pp. By the early twentieth century, Australians Ludowyx, William, 1999. Send Her Down spoke of Hughie as if he were a knockabout Who-ie? Ozwords, available from god – an equal, a mate. But that’s not how he www.anu.edu.au/andc/pubs/ozwords/ began. In the 1880s, the thirsty stockmen of October_99/index.html. Narrandera were not appealing for divine Murray, F, 2011. Thomas O’Shaughnessey’s intervention when they appealed to Hughie. diary, entry for 1848 – The Early Pioneers and They were recalling a local man’s audacity. their lives. Available from They were saluting John Ziegler Huie and his www.frankmurray.com.au/?page_id=420. meteorological cannon. Reilly, P.J., 1853. Notes to James Allen in References Journal of an experimental trip by the “Lady Huie, J., 2011. Huie Family Tree. Available Augusta” on the River Murray. Australiana from think.io/pub/Mirror/www.futureweb.com. facsimile editions 202, Ferguson no. 5897, au/johnhuie/tree.htm. 81–2. Brickfielders and Bursters Neville Nicholls School of Geography & Environmental Science, Monash University, Melbourne Address for correspondence: [email protected] The Australian Meteorological & So, when did “brickfielder” start to be used to Oceanographic Society (AMOS) has been denote a hot, northerly wind? And why? running a competition to name Melbourne’s Where was it used in this way? And what hot northerly wind, and the winners have just happened to the term? been announced (see News in this issue). Our Claire Fenby from the School of Earth Melbourne members had felt somewhat Sciences at The University of Melbourne envious of other cities and regions that have forwarded the following quote, indicating that names for the winds that distinguish them. the term was used in Geelong by the mid-19th Even Sydney has its “southerly buster”. So century: “On Saturday we were visited with a Kevin Walsh proposed that we invite members regular ‘brickfielder,’ the dust occasionally and the public to suggest a name. I ended up rising in impenetrable columns, and totally doing a few radio interviews about the obscuring the sky; the wind blew hot and competition and in some hectic research to strong from the north; the heat in the middle of prepare for these I realised that at some time in the day was oppressive, which joined to the the past we did have a name for this wind: thick clouds of dust made it anything but “brickfielder”. agreeable.” (Geelong Advertiser, 28 October On 16 March 1940 The Argus carried an article 1850). titled “North winds might be worse – if they It appears to have been a common term in lasted longer” (page 8).1 The Argus called the Sydney around that time, although not northerly wind a “brickfielder” and pointed out referring to a hot wind. A Mr Lovegrove is that it was “…our best-known wind, because it quoted in The Sydney Morning Herald of 29 makes strong men into weaklings, it frays July 1896 thus: “When I arrived in 1852 the tempers, ruins appetites, blows down trees, word was applied to the southerly-burster, hot spreads bush fires, and really gives us or cold, which, sweeping down the grassless something to complain about.” The article slope about Brickfield Hill, became charged compared the brutal nature of Melbourne’s with yellow dust, and being further added to in northerly with other named winds such as the its course along unpaved and irregular George- Mediterranean’s Mistral that “…lures the street and Pitt-street, reached the Circular English southward to look at the sun, even Quay as a blinding yellow storm equal to a though they only feel the wind. Melbourne will London fog, plus wind and clay and sand. A never draw tourists to feel its northerly.” fine vessel lying out in the stream, midway between Dawes Point and Milson's Point, had 1 This followed shortly after Melbourne’s record March just employed her crew in repainting the ship high of 41.7°C on 11 March 1940 – Ed. Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 24 page 42 from truck to water line. She was completely ‘Brickfielder’ - far better be pelted with dust spoilt by the ‘brickfielder’, and the captain than burnt to a cinder. But all in vain. Up to the informed me he would never try to paint again hour at which we noted down this poor bill of in Sydney Harbour. Brickfield Hill is now particulars, no relief had come. No sea-breeze covered with houses and the streets are paved, kissed the burning cheek; no south-wester including the footpaths, hence the bellowed consolation; no thunder-storm had disappearance of ‘brickfielders’.” chastised the pestiferous atmosphere; no weeping clouds had shed their compassions The effect of these southerly, dust-laden winds upon the torrid ground!” on Sydney residents is described by CRAYON, writing in the Australasian Everywhere else however, from Hobart to Chronicle on 4 February, 1840: “...with its Adelaide via Melbourne and the country penetrating dust, sharp as a Sydney lawyer, districts of the southern states, there is no prying into your peepers, and softly insinuating question that “brickfielder” referred to a hot itself into your inward man, is any thing but northerly wind, often carrying a heavy load of agreeable, despite its novelty. If you ensconce dust. H. H. Wheelwright (1861) noted, “In yourself behind a clear pane of glass, to protect Melbourne a hot-wind day is called a your eyes, and an air-tight door, to defend your ‘brickfielder’, on account of the dust, which stomach, you may view with indifference the darkens the sky” (quoted in Wilkes, 2008). The floating mist that with its rich brown dust same applied to many parts of New South mantles les pauvres diables who chance to be Wales outside the colonial capital. puddling along…look at that old dame at her But some correspondents thought that these stall – all her pyramidicul arrangements of winds, although annoying, were hardly a major peaches (this is the land of peaches and one hazard. Thus, a correspondent in the Adelaide pound notes) - all are overthrown, her whole Advertiser and Register on 15 September 1931 attention is divided between them and her says, “A shrewd observer has noted in petticoats.” Australians a marked tendency to the worship Sometimes the winds were potentially more of their climate. Our worship, no doubt, like dangerous than to a lady’s petticoats. The that of certain savage races, is qualified by Sydney Monitor on 10 October 1829 noted “On large infusions of mere abuse expended on the Monday last His Excellency and family were object of our regard. When the thermometer placed in considerable danger whilst sailing in rises to 110 degrees in the shade, or a consequence of a brickfielder coming on, brickfielder is scourging us with clouds of which nearly capsized the boat” (quoted in dust, the average Australian can invent nothing Hughes, 1989). too injurious to say about his climate. Nevertheless, when we consider what other In one of a series of articles on meteorology lands have to suffer from the tyranny of published in The Sydney Morning Herald (7 climate we may well believe that the February 1842), the correspondent bemoaned conditions of sky and air and sun, of breeze the absence of a name for Sydney’s hot winds and rainfall - all of which make up what is and even thought the word “Brickfielder” was called the ‘climate’ under which we live — are “a word as inexpressive and as absurd as the most benignant on the planet.” anything could well be devised, but for which, as well as for the general phrase “hot wind” it What caused the high dust content of the is not easy, though scientifically needed, to brickfielder? There was a widespread notion find a substitute. It would naturally occur to that this was due to dust from nearby the mind that a ‘Brickfielder’ itself was a hot brickfields. H. A. Hunt (who was later to and not a cold wind, but it is just the contrary. become Australia’s first Commonwealth We want some term to express the peculiar Meteorologist) in An Essay On Southerly wind called a ‘hot-wind’…. The ‘Brickfielder’ Bursters published in 1896 (Abercromby, would then fall back upon its legitimate title a 1896) pointed out that “In the early days of South-Wester, or Southerly squall.” Australian settlement, when the shores of Port Jackson were occupied by a sparse population, The term was used to denote a cool and the region beyond was unknown southwesterly from well before this time. In wilderness and desolation, a great part of the the Sydney Gazette and New South Wales Haymarket was occupied by the brickfields Advertiser of 16 February 1830, a from which Brickfield Hill takes its name. correspondent is describing a period of very When a ‘Southerly Burster’ struck the infant hot weather: “Every body looked out anxiously city, its approach was always heralded by a for a good dusting, hoping that each successive cloud of reddish dust from this locality, and in hour would bring along with it a hearty consequence the phenomenon gained the local Bulletin of the Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society Vol. 24 page 43 name of ‘brickfielder.’ The brickfields have Others, according to the Rev. J. H. Zillmann long since vanished, and with them the name (Australian Life, 1889), thought the hot winds to which they gave rise, but the wind continues were healthy: “Scientific men, however, tell us to raise clouds of dust under its modern name that these hot winds are just what make of ‘Southerly Burster.’” Australia so healthy a climate – that they act as scavengers and without them the death-rate of Others suggested it was sandhills, rather than the colonies would be alarmingly great”.

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