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James Hardie Industries

Irish building materials company

Architectural plans, a scale model, maps and brass measuring instruments
Places and architectureInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ6135535
Source-derived summary

James Hardie Industries plc is an American-Irish global building materials company and the largest global manufacturer of fibre cement products. Headquartered in Ireland, it is cross-listed on the Australian and New York Stock Exchanges. Its management team currently sits in Chicago, Illinois, United States. James Hardie was plagued by several asbestos-related scandals in the 20th century.

History

James Hardie (27 July 1851 – 20 November 1920) emigrated to Australia in 1888 from Linlithgow, Scotland, and established a business importing oils and animal hides. Andrew Reid, also from Linlithgow, came to join Hardie in Melbourne, and became a full partner in 1895. When Hardie retired in 1911, he sold his half of the business to Reid.

Listing on Sydney Stock Exchange and asbestos-containing products

The company was listed on the Sydney Stock Exchange in 1951. At the time, the company manufactured products out of asbestos cement sheet and other related building material. By the middle of the twentieth century, James Hardie had become the largest manufacturer and distributor of building products, insulation, pipes and brake linings containing asbestos.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “James Hardie Industries” is irish building materials company. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through James, Hardie and Industries, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewMost useful as a place-based finding aid connecting the present description to earlier jurisdictions, maps and built evidence. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1851, 1920, 1888, 1895—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1888. For this dossier, James, Hardie and Industries is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “irish building materials company” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6135535. VIAF identifies the subject as 141979919. The Library of Congress control number is n86104290. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1851, 1920, 1888 and 1895.

Critical limits

Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.

Best used for
  • Historic place names
  • Jurisdictional context
  • Routes into maps and plans
Verify next

Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “James Hardie Industries”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow James Hardie Industries primary sources, James Hardie Industries archive and James research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “James Hardie Industries”?
  2. What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
  3. Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from James Hardie Industries” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.