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Bayswater H.B. Brady & Co
H.B. Brady Co Pty was a leader in their field when it came to manufacturing ceilings and decorative plaster motifs. Their Bayswater workplace contained a sales outlet, administration office and the factory, all located within a large complex.
Harry Brady first established his company with a modern paper mill located on Guildford Road. Upon the property being sold, Brady moved into his well-known Bayswater premises, although sometime after the World War 1 upon being discharged from the 44th Infantry Battalion, 3rd, his plasterworks was apparently established in West Perth.
Today they are known as Bradys Plaster Products, manufacturing plasters and compounds, operating from a premises on Bushmead Road in Hazelmere. It appears they were bought out by BGC Australia, who registered the business name on 01 July 2000. Another 37 businesses names are also registered under BGC (Australia) Pty Ltd (previously a total of 441 with many names no longer registered), including BGC Plasterboard Trade Centre, BGC Plasterboard and BGC Fibre Cement.
The HB Brady warehouse was said to have closed in 2011, although it appears to have been tenanted until 2015 by Dixie Cummings Enterprises (importer and wholesaler of furniture) and Optimum Sandblasting & Coatings (now offering a Bassendean-based tilt tray and hiab transport service, a buyer of scrap vehicles and machinery and also a driving school on the side).
The office section of the H.B. Brady warehouse was said to be the only part deserving a heritage listing, as it was an example of pre-WWII factories, although the entire site was demolished in January 2021 for the Metronet project. Kaput!
1916
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24 January - Harry Brady enlists in the Australian Imperial Force at the age of 23 years and eight months. Interestingly, his writes 'Fresh' for a description of his complexion.
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13 August - Absent without leave for six days, has 14 days’ pay forfeited and is given seven days detention.
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26 September - Absent without leave for nine days, given 28 days field punishment and has 38 days’ pay forfeited.
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19 November - Absent without leave for four days, given five days field punishment and has 10 days’ pay forfeited.
1917
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03 March - Sent to service in France
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04 April - Admitted to hospital for tonsillitis
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10 June - Wounded in action whilst serving in France and admitted to the First Southern General Hospital in Birmingham, England after suffering from gas poisoning.
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18 June - Wounded in action
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22 June - Wounded in action
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25 August - Returns to Australia
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08 November - Discharged from the 44th Infantry Battalion, 3rd.
1919
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HB Brady Co Pty Ltd begins trading, a Western Australian owned and operated company founded by Harry Brady.
1923
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07 March - The H.B. Brady Co. Pty Ltd is registered as a company name. It was previously registered as H.B. Brady Coy. Limited
1948
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H.B. Brady & Co begins harvesting gypsum from the salt lake at Lake Brown on an intermittent basis. Gypsum is extracted for the production of plaster.
1955
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Harry Brady's 20 tonne, 12m vessel is commissioned. Named the Karen Sue after his two grand-daughters, it is powered by two 6-cylinder diesel engines of 100hp each and cruises at a speed of 7-8 knots.
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22 December - H.B. Brady Holdings Pty Ltd is registered as a company name.
2001
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The Brady family calls in administrators for their business H.B. Brady Co Pty Ltd, trading as Bradys Building Products
2005
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April - A labour hire worker, operating the bagging machine used to pack plaster into bags, partially amputates his finger when the v-belt becomes jammed.
2006
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December - HB Brady are found guilty in the Perth Magistrates Court for failing to ensure the dangerous parts of a machine was guarded, breaching the Occupational Safety and Health Regulations 1996. They are fined $3,500 with costs of $7,360.
2012
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31 August - The Yilgarn mining lease held by H.B. Brady Co. Pty Ltd is forfeited due to a breach of covenant, being failure to comply with the prescribed expenditure condition.
2014
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The company is officially listed in liquidation on 01 May 2014, a notice issued for a meeting of creditors and members.
2015
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9 March - H.B. Brady Holdings Pty Ltd and H.B. Brady Co. Pty Ltd company names are deregistered.
Ceiling Plasters
Street Art
Graff Art
My first visit of the H.B. Brady warehouse in Bayswater was late on a Saturday night sometime in October 2020. It was certainly a memorable one, what with our uncertainty of whether or not we would run into the squatters who had some weeks prior, threatened some young men with a blood-filled syringe. They had come during the day to photograph their nice shiny, dream car against the colourful backdrop of street graffiti.
Thankfully we didn't experience them or any such threats. Mind you, it was quite memorable for the fact that a group of four children, who appeared to be from the same family, had come to trash the place. The oldest girl looked to be about 16 years old and the three younger siblings probably between the ages of 9-14. Shortly after a destructive session, that was too short-lived for us to peacefully intervene, one of the two boys who looked to be about 11 years old, had stabbed himself. Not intentionally of course. It just happened. I think it was when he was climbing up the stairs (or trashing something there?), he'd put his hand on a protruding metal object that for an obvious reason, penetrated the palm of his hand.
Me being the typical ex-serving Brownie (Hurrah for Tintookies!) and Guides, I was always equipped with anything and everything I needed, especially with a well-stocked pencil case full of basic first aid equipment (and latex gloves). Unfortunately, it was a bit of a contentious issue for him to be bleeding so much when my supplies were rather limited. That and his fear of calling for an ambulance, which would presumably attract the police, like shark to a blood. He'd come to the conclusion, with barely any influence from his siblings, that he was better off bleeding out than attracting the attention of police.
Cutting the story short, it was a preposterous effort to convince this little man that he would not be left with any serious side effects if he was to hold a (clean) female sanitary pad in his hand. I'm not sure if he had some kind of Cinderella story in his head where - POOF - he suddenly turned into a female but with his three siblings and my three mates ganging up on him with our sensibility, he relented. Possibly because his energy was also waning like his blood levels.
Then all four children swiftly disappeared into the shadows of the night, possibly fearing that we would notify the police (or Crisis Care?). It was on our minds and it was an ethical one at that, which consumed all four of us as a duty of care but we too finally left.
