James Harrison (engineer)

James Harrison (17 April 1816 – 3 September 1893) was a Scottish Australian newspaper printer, journalist, politician, and pioneer in the field of mechanical refrigeration.

[3] He trained as a printing apprentice in Glasgow and worked in London as a compositor before emigrating to Sydney, Australia in 1837 to set up a printing press for the English company Tegg & Co.[3] Moving to Melbourne in 1839[4] he found employment with John Pascoe Fawkner as a compositor and later editor on Fawkner's Port Phillip Patriot.

[citation needed] But his rise ceased abruptly in 1854 after a controversial libel suit was brought against him by the Crown Prosecutor George Mackay whose evident drunkenness on duty Harrison had editorially deplored.

[citation needed] Harrison's first mechanical ice-making machine began operation in 1851[5] on the banks of the Barwon River at Rocky Point in Geelong.

[7] Though Harrison had commercial success establishing a second ice company back in Sydney in 1860, he later entered the debate of how to compete against the American advantage of unrefrigerated beef sales to the United Kingdom.

He wrote Fresh Meat frozen and packed as if for a voyage, so that the refrigerating process may be continued for any required period, and in 1873 prepared the sailing ship Norfolk for an experimental beef shipment to the United Kingdom.

[8] A plaque located at 100 Franklin St, Melbourne commemorates the Victoria Ice Works founded by James Harrison in 1859.