Article

The brickmaking industry in Kuala Lumpur in the late nineteenth century

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The brickmaking industry in Kuala Lumpur in the late nineteenth century

Abstract

Kuala Lumpur was primarily a mining centre in the nineteenth century, but there were other significant economic activities as well. As the city grew, so did the demand for construction materials. Although small compared with mining, the brick-making industry helped change Kuala Lumpur from a small village to a substantial city. This article explains how brick-making developed, and examines its significance.

Summary

This article traces the emergence and growth of the brickmaking industry in Kuala Lumpur following a series of destructive fires and structural failures in the early 1880s. The central historical problem it addresses is how a small mining settlement was transformed into a substantial urban centre through the intersection of regulatory intervention and industrial innovation. The authors argue that the Selangor State Council’s prohibition on flammable building materials—driven by public safety concerns after the 1881 fires and the 1884 storm damage—created an artificial but powerful demand stimulus that catalysed the brick industry, while the subsequent introduction of mechanised production methods gave the industry the capacity to supply large-scale government infrastructure projects.

The narrative is grounded in Selangor Secretariat Files held at the National Archives Malaysia, including building regulations, land grant applications, government tender documents, supply contracts, and machinery advertisements. These primary sources allow the authors to reconstruct the industry’s commercial dimensions—pricing structures, production capacities, and the competitive dynamics between European and local firms—as well as its physical footprint in the Brickfields and Damansara areas. The article positions brickmaking as a significant but underappreciated economic activity that operated alongside, and was distinct from, the tin mining sector that dominated accounts of the period.

A further thread runs through the article’s discussion of drainage and sewerage construction, where standardised machine-made bricks proved essential for meeting the precise dimensional specifications required by the Sanitary Board. This infrastructure dimension underscores how the brick industry was not merely a response to residential building needs but became embedded in the broader apparatus of colonial urban planning and public health.

Key Findings

  • The 1881 fires killed three people and left 500 homeless; a second fire that August destroyed twelve houses, prompting the Selangor State Council to ban wooden shophouses in the business area and require non-flammable materials (p. 62).
  • The 1884 building regulations imposed a maximum of twelve houses per block with at least 20 feet separation, required ceilings over 15 cm thick of non-flammable material, and carried a penalty of up to $100 for non-compliance; by early 1885 there were 218 brick houses in Kuala Lumpur, rising to 518 by 1887 (pp. 62–63).
  • By 1886, 15 brick factories and 6 limestone factories operated in and around Kuala Lumpur; government tenders recorded brick prices ranging from $2.25 to $4.75 per thousand units depending on size (pp. 63, 66).
  • Mechanised production, introduced via machines from H. Clayton, Son & Howlett’s, scaled output from 10,000 to 16,000 to 25,000 bricks per day while reducing labour requirements—a Single Chamber Machine needed only one operator to produce 5,000 bricks daily (pp. 67–68).
  • The Selangor State Railway consumed 1,050,000 bricks (9” × 4½” × 3”) for drain construction, and the Sanitary Board’s 1897 annual report records brick usage across multiple streets for sewerage works (pp. 69–70).
  • The Bangunan Sultan Abdul Samad, completed in 1897, required 4 million bricks, 2,500 barrels of cement, 18,000 pikuls of lime, 5,000 pounds of copper, 50 tons of steel, and approximately 30,000 cubic feet of timber (p. 71).

Conclusion

The authors conclude that the brickmaking industry became a major economic force in Kuala Lumpur as a direct consequence of colonial regulatory intervention following public safety crises, and that the adoption of mechanised production was the decisive factor that enabled the industry to meet the demands of large-scale government building programmes, thereby playing a formative role in the city’s physical transformation.

Context

  • Primary archival evidence is drawn from Selangor Secretariat Files (SSF) at the National Archives Malaysia, including PWD, Sanitary Board, and Miscellaneous series, supplemented by a small number of secondary sources (Gulick, Ahmad Kamal Ariffin, Suleiman & Lokman, Nik Anuar).
  • The article contributes to the historiography of Kuala Lumpur’s urban development by shifting attention from the dominant mining narrative to the material and industrial infrastructure—specifically the brick supply chain—that underpinned the city’s architectural and infrastructural growth.

References