Edward Hallstrom

Born at High Park station, near Coonamble, New South Wales, Hallstrom was the eighth of a family of nine children born to William Hallstrom, a saddler from England, and his Australian wife Mary Ann (née Colless). At the age of 4, his father's farm failed and the family moved to Waterloo, New South Wales, an inner-city suburb of Sydney. Hallstrom's parents separated and, by the age of 10, he was working, performing a variety of jobs to help supplement the family's income. Largely self-taught (having left school at 13), he applied himself well to both his studies and his work, and eventually took charge of a furniture factory. He later founded a business of his own, manufacturing bedsteads.[1]

Taylor and his glider, 1909

He was a member of the Australian Aerial League, led by George Augustine Taylor. Beginning on 5 December 1909, at the sand hills near the entrance to Narrabeen Lakes, Hallstrom took turns—along with Taylor and his wife Florence Mary Taylor, and two others—to make short non-powered flights, in a glider that Taylor had built, based upon the box-kite designs of Taylor's close friend, Lawrence Hargraves. It was intended that the glider would be fitted with an engine to become the first Australian-made aeroplane, but the engine was not delivered,[2][3][4][5] and that honour went instead to John Duigan.[6]

The flights on 5 December 1909 are regarded as the first flights of a heavier-than-air aircraft in Australia,[6] and are commemorated by three replicas of Taylor's glider, one of which is in the collection of the National Museum of Australia.[7][8]

Hallstrom met his wife, Margaret Elliott Jaffrey, on a trip to Queensland. She was a talented artist, and shared his enthusiasm for birds and animals. They were married at her parents' home in the Brisbane suburb of New Farm, Queensland, on 6 April 1912. After their reception, the newly-weds left for Sydney on RMS Osterley.[1][9] The couple had one son and three daughters.

Hallstom's bedstead business, in Abattoir road, Pyrmont, flourished initially. He even set up a sawmill to mill his own hardwood timber, at Micalong, in 1921, and claimed to have made the first innerspring mattresses in Australia.[10]

The never properly explained death of one of his wire-mattress makers, at the Pyrmont factory, in July 1923, both attracted nationwide attention and litigation that eventually reached the High Court, which directed the matter to arbitration under the Workmen's Compensation Act. The arbitration confirmed an award of £500 to the widow, in 1925, and that, with legal costs, crippled the business financially. E. J. L. Hallstom Ltd, which had by then moved to Moore Street, Leichhardt, was voluntarily wound up in early 1926.[10][11] Hallstrom was made bankrupt in February 1926.[12] It seemed as if his business career was at an early end.

While his bedstead business prospered, Hallstrom and his family had been living in the suburb of Roseville, and he was well off enough to own a motor car. The financial difficulties that followed were described as "eight difficult years" by his daughter Esme. During that time, Hallstrom became bankrupt, the life of relative prosperity ended, and the family moved often; first to Balgowlah, and then to Gore Hill, Dee Why, and Willoughby.[13]

Esme says that the family fortunes began to improve once Hallstrom was employed at the same factory where he had worked as a foreman before commencing his own bedstead business.[13] In 1915, Hallstrom had been named as the inventor on a patent, but the patent had been assigned in the name of one Louis Joseph, a manufacturer of bedding;[14] it seems likely that was the name of Hallstrom's saviour in difficult times. Hallstrom was said to have remained grateful to him, for the rest of his days, something that may have influenced his own later philanthropy. The business also manufactured the wooden cabinets of ice chests, something that may have driven forward Hallstrom's interest in refrigeration.[13]

The difficult years ended around 1932, when Hallstrom was released from bankruptcy, having already begun small-scale manufacturing of refrigerators around 1930. He was able to purchase both the building that became his factory and Figtree House at Northbridge, which would become his home. Although it was on a large block of waterfront land, the house, built in 1875, was old and isolated, located in an area yet to be developed, and without a water, gas or electricity supply;[13] probably why Hallstrom could afford it.

Initially, refrigeration was not the only area to catch Hallstrom's interest; he dabbled in aviation[15] and claimed to have invented a new type of shell to strike ships below the waterline.[10] His first three Australian patents, in 1913, 1915, and 1926, were to do with the design of beds.[16] However, it was his interest in refrigeration that would have the most tangible results. Self taught, he read up on the subject, including reading every patent on refrigeration taken out since Federation.[1]

During the 1920s, electric refrigerators were available,[17] but were expensive and so relatively uncommon. In towns, iceboxes, also called ice chests in Australia, were common but required home deliveries of blocks of ice, at intervals dictated by the weather conditions.[18] Residents of rural areas, remote or yet to be electrified, had little alternative, other than the Coolgardie safe, an evaporative cooler of limited effectiveness. An affordable and effective refrigeration solution for the rural parts of the country was needed, and presented a great business opportunity.

Various sources state that Hallstrom invented his Icy Ball refrigeration device in 1923. However there is a problem with that early date; there is concurrence that the invention took place in the backyard shed of his home at Dee Why,[1][13] but in 1923 Hallstrom was not yet living at Dee Why. Hallstrom's daughter Esme put the year as both 1926 and 1927, in her account of the family. An accomplished artist herself, she later made a sketch of the family with the refrigeration apparatus, presumably from memory, which accurately rendered a device quite similar to that later patented by Hallstom—and heated by what appears to be a Primus stove—and she described its operation in a way that is like that of an Icy Ball.[13][19] His biographer, Audrey Tate, gives the year of the manufacture of his first refrigeration device as 1928.[1]

Crosley Icy Ball that was mass-produced in the U.S.A. Like Hallstom's device, it was necessary to remove the device to recharge it.

Another kerosene-powered refrigerating device, also called an Icy Ball, was invented by Canadian engineer, David Forbes Keith. Keith had filed two Canadian patent applications relating to absorption refrigeration, in 1921[20] and 1922.[21] Later, while consulting to the Crosley Radio Corp, he reused concepts from his earlier patents to design the Icy Ball, After Keith filed for a U.S. patent (1,740,737), on 27 June 1927, it was mass produced in the United States by Powel Crosley Jr., but the US patent was only granted on 24 December 1929.[22][23] It was being sold in Australia, by December 1927.[24][25]

Refrigeration device patented in 1928[19]

The Hallstrom and Crosley Icy Balls appear to have operated on similar principles, both consisting of two connected vessels that acted as a boiler/generator and condenser/evaporator, both using a mixture of ammonia and water as the refrigeration medium, and both were operated using essentially the same manual recharging procedure. However, the shapes of the vessels of the two designs were quite different,[23][19] and their similarities, otherwise, quite probably resulted from two independent inventors attempting to solve exactly the same problem.

In May 1928, with Hallstrom still bankrupt and therefore using his wife's name, M. E. Hallstrom, a patent application, 13,475, "Improvements in refrigerating apparatus" was made,[26][10][19] covering his refrigeration invention. This was followed by five more patent applications, all successful, which, after his release from bankruptcy in 1932, were made under his own name, in 1934,[27] 1935,[28] two in 1936,[29][30] and 1940.[31] He registered the design of his refrigerator (Registered design No. 12092), in 1934, the same year that his new refrigerator factory in Willoughby opened.[10] His last patent was in 1951.[32]

As he became better known, the widespread perception that he was a groundbreaking Australian inventor and engineer became a part of his well-crafted public persona,[33] and a asset in selling refrigerators.

Having lived an early life of hardship and enduring a second period of hardship in middle age, Hallstrom held a view that the mere accumulation of wealth was not enough. He was quoted, by his daughter Esme, as saying, "It's nice to have money. It oils the wheels, but never get carried away with it. Selfishly hoarding up wealth unnecessarily for personal power or self gratification does no good for anybody." He went on saying, "I never forget where the money comes from in the first place, just the ordinary working man mostly. Probably had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to pay for his refrigerator. So it's only common decency to give back what you can and hopefully where it will do the most good."[70]

He directed much of his fortune to the Taronga Zoo in Sydney, becoming a trustee and later chairman of the zoo. He personally funded the purchase of many large and exotic species from overseas. He established a farm to produce fresh food for the zoo animals, and also set up a fauna reserve on the outskirts of Sydney, later to form part of the Muogamarra Nature Reserve.[1] His company sponsored a conservation-oriented panel program Nature Speaks from 1947–54 on radio 2GB, compered by John Dease.[71]

Hallstrom was also generous in his financial gifts to hospitals and medical research centres as well as numerous charities. His reputation as a philanthropist resulted in his being besieged with requests for financial assistance, and he was known to take personal interest in the many letters and requests he received.[1]

He was generous to those fallen on hard times. In 1949, forced to lay off 550 employees of his factory, due to a shortage of critical materials caused by a lengthy coal strike, his company paid their furniture and house hire-purchase installments, until they could restart work, and he invited such employees facing financial difficulties to apply for special help.[72] In 1952, he offered a free new-model Silent Knight refrigerator to replace any uninsured one lost in the bushfires of that year.[73]

Hallstrom is believed to have donated over A$4 million to philanthropic causes during his lifetime,[1] equivalent to many times that amount at current values.

Hallstrom was knighted in 1952, and received gold medals from zoological societies in Belgium and San Diego, California. He also received an honorary Swedish knighthood.

He was also the first Australian to be named "Father of the Year", in 1957.[74]

Hallstrom was a member of zoological societies in Sydney (Royal Zoological Society of New South Wales), London (Zoological Society of London) and New York (New York Zoological Society) and was also a member of the Explorers Club and the Royal Australian Historical Society.

He was a Freemason.[75] He was an Honorary Ranger,[76] and took that role seriously.

With Hallstrom both aging[77] and increasingly devoted to philanthropic projects, Hallstrom absorption refrigerators became less competitive with more modern designs, and the market for kerosene-powered refrigerators shrank as electrical power reticulation was extended in rural areas. From the early 1950s, Hallstrom's factory was also producing conventional electric refrigerators, based on the vapour-compression cycle and with sealed unit compressors, under the "Silent Knight" brand.[78][79]

As well as his involvement with Taronga Zoo, Hallstrom had his own menagerie on 65 acres of bushland that he owned at Mona Vale. His collection included a mob of albino kangaroos and wallabies. He attempted to breed animals and birds that were at risk of extinction there.[80] There was also a smaller private zoo in the grounds of his home at Northbridge.

Halstrom had aviaries at Nondugl in the Wahgi Valley of the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea. This largely avicultural facility, managed from 1953 by Fred Shaw Mayer, later became known as the Nondugl Bird of Paradise Sanctuary. It acted mainly as a staging post for Taronga Zoo in Sydney, either to provide birds directly for Taronga, or for exchanges with other zoos.[81] In 1967, Mayer was also involved in establishing the Baiyer River Sanctuary, set up after Hallstrom donated part of his collection of birds-of-paradise to the Australian-administered government of Papua New Guinea.[81]

Not all Hallstrom's ideas ended in success. An attempt to farm Romney sheep at Nondugl failed, when—after several years of apparently thriving—the animals became infested with gastrointestinal worms. However, many years later, others did succeed where Hallstrom had failed, by introducing sheep with genetic inheritance of the Priangan tropical sheep breed to Papua New Guinea.[82][83][84]

Hallstrom was involved in controversy over his stewardship of and influence over the Taronga Zoo,[85][86] with two state government inquiries criticising his lack of professional training in zoology as well as the extent of his use of concrete in animal enclosures. According to biographer Audrey Tate,[1]

The inquiries shook Hallstrom badly. He rejected the notion that an ardent love of animals could be superseded by professional training and that "scientists found it impossible to communicate with him". From 1966 he was also under covert surveillance for illegal trafficking in fauna. Four years later, thirty-five people were convicted of that offence and it was thought that Hallstrom may have used his influence to have his involvement concealed. Whatever the truth, in 1968, dispirited and unwell, he donated his personal collection of birds and animals worth more than $20,000 to the zoo.

The zoo had been a large part of his life. In later years, still beginning his work day at 7:30 a.m,. he would leave the factory, in his chauffeur-driven car, at 1:30 p.m., to spend the rest of his day at the zoo. After his donation of birds to the zoo, only thirty of approximately 900 birds remained, at his home at Northbridge.[87]

Hallstrom's wife of 56 years, Margaret, died in 1968,[88] compounding his despondency. In a response in an interview, published in October 1968, Halstrom said, "The only man who could have told the story of myself and the work I have done is dead, and I have never confided much in others." The resulting article made scant mention of his inventions—other than his self-dismissive claim that he had just worked by trial and error—and made no mention at all of his years of financial difficulty; much of the article concerns the zoos, sanctuaries and, above all, the animals and birds[87] that were the true passion of his later years.

In June 1969, he married Dr Mary Mabel Maguire, née McElhone, a widow and an old friend.[1] She was the eldest daughter of Arthur McElhone.[89] She and her previous husband had worked together in cancer research that had been supported financially by Hallstrom.[90][91] Their marriage was short-lived.

He died at Northbridge, New South Wales, on 27 February 1970,[92] and was survived by his wife and the son and three daughters of his first marriage.[1] He left an estate $1,049,627, reduced to $974,914 by death duty, which was less than a quarter of what he was said had given away. His wife received a one tenth share, each of his daughters a one twelfth share, with the balance to his son.[93][1]

Later in the same year that he died, there was an attempt to revive the iconic "Silent Knight" brand of Hallstrom refrigerators, but it did not last.[94]

Hallstrom is now mainly remembered for his philanthropy, but his achievements in business and as a self-taught refrigeration engineer are remarkable. Hallstrom had been bankrupted in 1926, at around 40 years of age, after having seen his first manufacturing business go under. After his discharge from bankruptcy in 1932, he opened a factory just two years later, in 1934, which by mid 1938 employed 150 skilled workers and produced 300 refrigerators per week. By the mid 1940s, around the time that Hallstom was 60, it was making 1,200 "Silent Knight" refrigerators per week. Personal ownership of a successful company allowed him to do much as he pleased with the personal fortune that it generated.[1][10][62]

Hallstrom's name is associated with a piece of Australian taxation case law: the High Court's decision that the money his company spent, opposing Electolux's petition to extend its patent in 1938, had not been a deductible expense.[56]

Although it was reformed and modernised after his tenure, reflecting a subsequent emphasis on scientific research, conservation and education, the Taronga Zoo is Hallstrom's main legacy.[95] There is a memorial plaque bearing his image and a commemorative blue plaque, both at the zoo.[96][97] However, long after his death, further allegations of his involvement in illegal trafficking of wildlife would be made.[98]

The Hallstrom Theatre in the Australian Museum, was named after him, following his generous gift, in 1958, that financed its remodelling.[99]

Hallstrom Park, on land opposite where his factory once stood at 462-464 Willoughby Road, Willoughby, is named after him. In 1946, he had contributed £3,000 for improvements to the land to allow it to be used for recreational and sporting purposes.[100] The area closest to the road was known for many years as the Hallstom Playing Fields, before the area was extended eastward over what had been the open-air rubbish tip of Willoughby Municipality, as the Bicentennial Reserve.[101] The factory site itself is now occupied by apartment blocks.[102] It closed not long after Hallstrom's death and was demolished in the 1970s. The site of his former home at 26 Artarmon Road, Willoughby, where Hallstrom first manufactured his refrigerators, before his factory opened, later became part of the Channel 9 studios, later redeveloped as yet more apartments.

Hallstrom Point on Middle Harbour at Northbridge, and the roadway on it, Hallstrom Close, is named after him. It was the site of his former home, Figtree House, which was demolished after his death. Much of what is the modern-day Hallstrom Close lies inside the 2.25 acres of harbourside land that were his former house's grounds, with its private zoo.[103][104][105] Most of the site is now occupied by eight large waterfront houses, but a portion of 2,803m², at the tip of the point, is a public waterfront reserve.[106][107][108]

The southern part of what is now the Muogamarra Nature Reserve was known as the Edward Hallstom Faunal Reserve, between 1961 and 1969. It resulted from a collaboration between Halstrom and the conservationist Allen Strom, which aimed to protect a population of koalas on that land.[109][110]

Hallstrom donated a collection of over 1,600 rare books on Asia and the Pacific, to the Commonwealth Government in 1948. Initially, the collection became the Hallstrom Pacific Library of the Australian School of Pacific Administration at Middle Head. When that institution closed, the collection passed to the National Library of Australia and was subsequently placed on permanent loan to the University of New South Wales.[111] However, the books are once again part of the National Library's collection, identified by the series "Hallstrom Pacific Collection" that now comprises 1,765 items.[112]

He gifted a collection of paintings of animals and birds by the French-American self-taught naturalist and artist John James Audubon to President Truman, in 1951, for the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C..[113][114][115]

Two photographic portraits of Hallstrom by Max Dupain are in the collection or the National Portrait Gallery,[116][117] as is a portrait in oils of Hallstrom, by his daughter Esme Bell. She also wrote an account of her family, Never say never, self-published in 2007, a copy of which is held in the National Library of Australia.[118][119][13] Willoughby City Library has photographs of the factory in Willoughby Road,[120] and a Hallstrom "Silent Knight" electric refrigerator, from 1958, is included in the collection of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences.[79]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Edward Hallstrom.

• Sir Edward John Lees Hallstrom, 25 September  1886-27 February 1970 (Pittwater Online News)
• 'The Icy Ball' - video showing operation of the Crosley Icy Ball; it also mentions Hallstrom's 1923 refrigerator
• Instruction manual for 'Silent Knight' kerosene-powered refrigerator (National Library of Australia)
• Taronga Zoo History
• King Kong - Australia's First Gorilla - short film from 1959, in which Hallstrom appears with one of his animal purchases for Taronga Zoo
• The end of a unique institution
• 1968 interview with Halstrom - 'Sydney's Silent Knight', Walkabout Magazine
• 1968 interview with Hallstrom - recounted in 1970
• 'A New Industry in the Land of Eternal Spring' - a short film from 1949, in which Hallstrom appears introducing sheep to New Guinea
• Alfred Hitchcock Receives Zoo Gift from Sir Edward Hallstrom - a short film from 1964
• 'Is the Koala Doomed to Extinction?' - a short film from 1962 in which Hallstrom appears