Budapest-Szentlőrinc and Tata Tile and brick factory

The Budapest-Szentlőrinc and Tatai Cserép- és Tátai Cserép- és Bréglagyár Részvénytársaság was founded in 1889 by the Hungarian General Credit Bank. The foundation and the conditions for brick production were favoured by the construction of the local railway connecting the factory with the capital. The improvements made in the 1910s enabled the company to maintain its importance between the two world wars, although in the mid-1930s it had to abandon one of its plants for economic reasons. The company's operations were intertwined with those of Oszkár Szirmai, who presided over the company for nearly a quarter of a century.

The raw material for bricks as a finished building product is clay, mined from the surface of the earth. The raw material, first kneaded with water and then pressed, was produced by firing, during which the raw bricks lost their moisture and became solid.

Brick production took off in the second to third decade after the German Reunification, as a result of the second industrial revolution. Favourable economic conditions led to a significant building boom in the Hungarian capital and the capital and in larger cities. As the industrial revolution unfolded, brickworks were built to meet the growing social demand. In the south-eastern part of Budapest, the natural conditions were particularly favourable for brickworks. The most important of the brickworks established at this time was the Budapest-Sentlőrinci brickworks.

The Budapest-Sentlőrinci brickworks was founded in 1889 by the Hungarian General Credit Bank. The company's factory in Budapest-Szentlőrince produced bricks. In order to improve the expensive and slow transport of the finished product by wagon, the company initiated negotiations for the construction of a high-speed railway line. The positive response to this allowed the company to take advantage of favourable conditions for the construction of a local rail service: it built its own line to the capital.

Thanks to the developments in the first years of operation, by the time of the boom, the company had an independent plant not only in Szentlőrince but also in Kispest. The so-called Szemere factory in Kispest was bought in 1909. At the beginning of the 1910s, in 1911-1912, in addition to brick production, the company started to produce tiles, as well as household tile and cement products. The president of the company at that time was Oszkár Szirmai, the general manager of the Stone Oil Refinery Ltd.

This was the golden age of the company: expansion was beginning. First, it bought the brickworks in Tata for a few hundred thousand crowns, which had been located next to the brickworks of the Esterházy counts, but which had gone bankrupt due to competition from competitors. The purchase enabled the sale of bricks and tiles in Tata to begin, and its success and profitability allowed further expansion. Thus, it acquired the brickworks in Karcag and the associated lime kiln from Debrecen Forgalmi Bank.

This move by the joint-stock company caused great alarm among the lime cartel, as some of the high-quality lime from the nationally renowned Elesdi lime was also marketed from Karcag. Marcel Gáldi, a former official and later CEO of the joint-stock company, also bought forest land and a limestone mine in the Bihor mountains. This activity, fearing that the company would not be able to compete in the market, frightened the cartel of companies specialising in lime production in Transylvania, which paid the company's management a large break fee for five years in order to avoid competition.

However, the peace treaty after the First World War left its mark on the company's operations, as it lost many of its sites as a result of the border settlements. The recovery came in the 1920s. In 1922, the company embarked on a major development programme, announcing a large-scale programme of work worth more than a billion crowns to develop and expand its various divisions. In 1923, a scandal broke out over fraudulent use of the company's name: fake Szentlőrinci Brickworks shares worth some 15-20 million crowns were produced in Vienna, prompting the police to launch a wide-ranging investigation. The Tata Tile and Brickworks joint-stock company, founded by Marcell Gáldi in 1918, was merged in 1927 into the Budapest-Szentlőrinci Brickworks. The company was then given its final name, Budapest-Szentlőrinci és Tatai Cserép- és Bréglagyár Részvénytársaság (Budapest-Szentlőrinci and Tatai Tile and Brickworks Joint Stock Company). By these years, the company had production plants in Pestszentlőrince, Kispest, Tata-Tóváros and Karcag and employed around 600 workers. On 7 January 1928, it also absorbed the Debrecen Calcium Stone and Clay Industry Joint Stock Company, founded in 1910, so that by the early 1930s the company also owned the Porcellán, Kőedény and Kályhagyár Joint Stock Company, the First Élesdi and Tordai Mészbrennető Joint Stock Companies.

After the boom years of the 1920s, the company was again in difficulty in the mid-1930s. In 1935 the company transferred its shares in the Kispest factory to the Hungarian General Coal Mine in exchange for the settlement of coal debts. As an indication of its cooperation with the Hungarian General Stone Coal Mine, the company set up its offices in the MÁK building in 1935-1936, but moved out unexpectedly in August 1936. The late 1930s also saw a slight downturn in the company's share price.

By the end of the 1930s, the company owned only the factory in Szentlőrinc, which produced 20 million bricks and 4 million tiles a year. The company was able to compensate for the decline that began in the first half of the Second World War with some progress, but the defeat of the war prevented this trend from continuing. After the war, it continued to operate as a brickworks in Pestszentlőrince.

Sources

László Keller: From local transport to high-speed rail. Budapest, 1979. 17(1).

László Keller. Retrospective. The emergence and evolution of the BLVV. Urban Transport. 1980, 20(4). 241-246.

Hungarian Financial Compass 1917-1943/1944.

Great Hungarian Compass 1906-1916.

Press material 1899-1944.

Géza Szentmiklóssy (ed.): The Hungarian Resurrection lexicon. Budapest, 1930. 607.

Founded in 1899

Termination time not set

Founders: Mgyar General Credit Bank

Securities issued:

Decisive leaders:

Principal activities: manufacture of semi-finished and finished construction products, manufacture of domestic appliances

Main products:

Seats are not configured

Locations are not set

Main milestones are not set

Author: Róbert Szabó