Edward Hallstrom

Sir Edward John Lees Hallstrom (25 September 1886 – 27 February 1970) was one of Australia's best-known philanthropists and businessmen of the mid 20th century.

[1][2] The accepted biographical narrative is that, at the age of four, his father's farm failed and the family moved to Waterloo, an inner-city suburb of Sydney.

McKell became first a boilermaker and was involved in the Labour Movement, later studied law and became a barrister, entered politics and was later a Premier of New South Wales, and eventually became Governor-General of Australia.

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.

[32] During that time, Hallstrom became bankrupt,[31] the life of relative prosperity ended, and the family moved often; first to Balgowlah, and then to Gore Hill, Dee Why, and Willoughby.

[33] Esme says that the family fortunes began to improve once Hallstrom was employed at the same factory, in Redfern, where he had worked as a foreman before commencing his own bedstead business.

While working at the factory, he developed an insulated wooden ice chest design, with a top-access door, that would reappear in his earliest refrigerators.

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.

[33] Initially, refrigeration was not the only area to catch Hallstrom's interest; he dabbled in aviation[37] and claimed to have invented a new type of shell to strike ships below the waterline.

Later an accomplished artist herself, Esme 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 Hallstrom—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.

[47][48] Yet another early, imported, kerosene-powered refrigeration device was the "Gnome ice producer"—its original German brand name was "Gnom"[49]—which was on sale in Australia, by June 1926,[50] even before the Crosley Icy Ball U.S. patent had been filed.

[61] As Hallstrom became better known, the widespread perception that he was a groundbreaking Australian inventor and engineer became a part of his well-crafted public persona,[62] and an asset in selling refrigerators.

Hallstrom's Icy Ball was a kerosene-powered chest model, which he designed for use in the Australian outback, where the low-tech Coolgardie safe was in widespread use.

[42] The backyard shed of the Hallstrom's home at 26 Ryan Street (now Artarmon Road), Willoughby, was the location of his first manufacturing of refrigeration equipment.

[63] The "White Frost" was being advertised, by July 1930, for sale via the rural agency Dalgety & Company, and presumably Hallstrom's fledgling manufacturing operation was underway by then.

The refrigerators Hallstrom manufactured at the Willoughby factory could also appear under the brand names Sno-man, Gulbransen, Magicold, Selfreezer, Freeze, Super-Freezer, Hollingsworth, and others.

[86] Electrolux was a large multinational appliance manufacturer, of Swedish origin and controlled by Axel Wenner-Gren, which made absorption refrigerators generally regarded as superior to Hallstrom's.

[92] Two key Australian patents held by Electrolux, covering its successful, continuously freezing, air-cooled design, were due to expire on 18 August 1938.

[89][85][93][94] Hallstrom had new models planned for 1938-1939,[95][89] but it eventuated that his 1938 "Centenary" upright model—somewhat more aesthetically pleasing than the 1936 model—still had a large, if better-disguised, tank filled with brine on top.

The end of the war and returning military personnel would bring a rapid increase in family formation, and with that a high demand for refrigerators.

[102] The "Hallstrom Silent Knight" was a fairly-priced, locally produced product at a time (post-war era) when imported refrigerators were very expensive.

From the early 1950s, Hallstrom's factory was producing conventional electric refrigerators, based on the vapour-compression cycle, with sealed unit compressors, under the "Silent Knight" brand.

[121] 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.

[122][123] At the height of its initial success, in 1949, Hallstrom was able to show his lifelong friend, then Governor-General William McKell, over the sheep-raising venture, and host a feast, complete with war dancers, of 60 roasted pigs and tons of sweet potatoes.

[126] In his later years, Hallstrom usually stayed in a spartan flat at the factory, on weekday nights, and generally only returned to his home at Northbridge, only 4 km away, for weekends.

By the mid 1960s, there was an increasing perception that the Taronga Zoological Park was being treated by Hallstrom as if it were his personal plaything, to the detriment of the institution itself and the many animals crowded into what were by then seen as its inadequate enclosures.

[1][25][95] 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.

[89] 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.

[171] 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.

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.