Denis Theodore of Bridgend sent us this photo of an imperial blue brick with the word DUREX impressed into its rounded rectangular frog, which intrigued me. Who made it? And when?
 
The answer seems to be that Durex bricks were possibly made by Stanley Brothers of Nuneaton and H. R. Vaughan of Co Durham, as well as the Durex Corporation in Canada.
 
Stanley Brothers was a major building materials and coal mining business which stretched back to the later 1700s. Anecdotally 'The Extraordinary World of Thames and Field' and Penmorfa both of which have photos of Durex bricks, state that the Durex brick is believed to have been made by Stanley Brothers of Nuneaton, which occupied the Swan Lane and Nuneaton Collieries in Stockingford between 1872 and 1878. The Dreadnought roof tile company website states that a Durex roof tile was made by Stanley Brothers in the twentieth century. Stanley Brothers continued making bricks, pavers, ridge, malt kiln tiles or pamments, glazed bricks, chimneypots, sinks and ornamental clayware into the twentieth century. They had seven yards each specialising in a range of products in 1932, and the registered trade mark for the Durex brand in 1938.
 
H. R. Vaughan & Co Ltd, makers of bituminous roofing felt under the brand name Durex, advertised the product from 1914 to 1940 in the UK. Vaughan seems to be the only brand which advertised Durex, and was named in a parliamentary debate as one of 46 brickworks in operation in Co Durham in 1946.
 
An old firebrick impressed with a frog impressed DUREX 43 was for sale on the Canadian eBay - attributed as 'probably' Stanley Brothers but possibly made by the Durex Corporation of Canada.
 
The name Durex is in a 1955 copy of Laxtons Builders Price Book which listed Edward Johns, and subsequently in 1962 its buyer Armitage Ware Ltd, as making washbasins, Belfast sinks and London sinks under the brand name Durex.
 
But the use of the word Durex as a brand name does not stop there. It was used in the USA by a company bought by 3M for a brand of refractory brick. Were there any ties with 3M?
 
Reginald Stanley, before becoming one of the Stanley Brothers, adventured to the USA in 1857, fur-trapping up the Mississippi and successfully prospecting gold in Montana with four like-minded gold diggers known locally as the Four Georgians, before returning to Nuneaton in the late 1860s a wealthy man. He then ran Stanley Brothers with his brother Jacob Stanley, an artist and mathematician.
 
The Durex Corporation was apparently established in 1928 by 3M to manufacture abrasives in Britain and Canada, and by 1935 France and Germany. Eventually this strand of the Durex brand was bought by National Refractories & Minerals Corporation in California where it related in 1991 specifically to refractory brick. Curiously there is an old Canada eBay listing for an 'antique firebrick named Durex 43 which is attributed 'probably' to Stanley Brothers Ltd, although it seems likely that a Canadian Durex brick would more likely have been made by the Canadian Durex Corporation.
 
Then there was Whites Nunan Ltd who sold fire hoses branded as Durex in 1962. And abrasive papers sold by Churchill & Co Ltd branded and Durex in 1940. And abrasive clothes branded Durex sold by Griffiths & Co. And not forgetting Durex sandpaper sold in 1940 by R. W. Greeff & Co.
 
Going back a bit further, in 1912 Darwin & Milner was in court over some high speed steel Durex products in 1909, and Morpeth bridge in Northumberland was resurfaced by the Durex Company using a new system named Durex Dustless Paving.
 
In 1936 a racehorse named Durex was doing well, as was the Durex Baseball Team in Birmingham's Baseball League. Other non-building uses of Durex includes surgical gloves in 1942, ARP leathercloth in 1940.
 
The London Rubber Company, famed for its Marigold Gloves, was founded in 1915 and registered the Durex brand in 1929, possibly for surgical gloves, possibly condoms by 1932, and then went on to release its first lubricated condom on the 1950s. Durex ads for family planning, presumably condoms not bricks, appeared in 1955. The Durex condom brand is now owned by Reckitt Benckiser.
 
So we have no definitive answer, but the best guess is that DUREX was a brick made by Stanley Brothers of Nuneaton or H & R Vaughan & Co of Co Durham, and possibly the Durex Corporation in Canada, and the brick's history is likely to predate its more famous cousin - the condom.