Pages

Tuesday, 5 August 2025

Death by Brick

 Death by Brick

 

E. S. Wigg & Son stationers and adjoining buildings in Grenfell St, Adelaide, 1922
SLSA: [B 10365]


  It was August 1921, when Arthur Leonard Brown of 166 Carrington Street, Adelaide, went to work like any other day. On this day he was employed as part of the work gang building known as Wigg’s Building at 63-69 Grenfell Street, Adelaide.

  E.S. Wigg & Son Limited began on Rundle Street in 1849, established by Edgar Smith Wigg. The company produced stationery, which it just so happened, that a law had passed in 1849 requiring records to be kept for councils, religious congregations, licenses and taxation. In the 1870’s Wigg & Son also offered school supplies. A new building was erected on Rundle Street in 1880 – which was subsequently demolished during the Myer Centre rebuild in the 1990s.
 With a growing business in South Australia and Western Australia, the company bought land on Grenfell Street to meet its storage requirements. They moved into the Grenfell Street building in December 1921.[1]

 Mr Brown was going about his business as a bricklayer on that fateful day. Another bricklayer, Harold Gordon O’Reilly, was also working at Wiggs. O’Reilly was stationed on the third floor of the building when he the cry of “Under below!”  O’Reilly noticed two bricks falling from the floor above.
 Gordon Scroop, another bricklayer was working on the third-floor landing, winching up bricks in a barrow. A load of bricks came up on the winch but was an inch too short to be swung onto the landing, because of this there was a slight jerking motion to the barrows which caused two bricks to come loose and fall. Scroop called out several times with a warning: “Under below!”[2]

 Brown had hooked the barrow of bricks onto the winch that was to go to the third floor. Richard Williams, the winch driver, set the winch in motion, and both men watched it go up from below. Williams heard the cry of “Under, Below,” but it was too late, he watched as one brick hit Brown in the back of the head, and another slid across his shoulder.  Brown was rushed to the Adelaide Hospital where he died later the same day.

An inquest was held a week later at the Education Building on Flinders Street, under City Coroner, Dr Ramsey Smith. Dr Wentworth R.C. Mainwaring deposed that the brick had hit Brown in almost the centre of the back of his head. It had left a slight cut but had fractured Brown's skull from the top middle of his head to the base of his skull – this is what killed him.[3] The Coroner found the death to be accidental.

Arthur Leonard Brown was just 29 years of age when the accident occurred. Brown was buried at the West Terrace Cemetery.[4]


Researched and written by Allen Tiller ©2024



[1] ‘Wigg’s Building’, Heritage of the City of Adelaide, City of Adelaide, (2001), p. 1., https://d31atr86jnqrq2.cloudfront.net/heritage-places/heritage-place-information-sheet-63-69-grenfell-street.pdf.

[2] 'Killed By A Falling Brick', The Express and Telegraph, (29 August 1921), p. 2.

[3] 'Killed By Falling Brick.', The Journal, (29 August 1921), P. 1.

[4] 'Family Notices', Daily Herald, (26 August 1921), p. 2.