Feature
HOMAGE TO HARRISON Sir Don Bradman has one, so does Saint Mary McKillop, Norman Lindsay, and Bert Hinkler. So why isn’t the story of James Harrison, the father of refrigeration, told in a museum? As Sean McGowan reports, one dedicated group is working towards this goal. After ascending to the role of editor, Harrison was sent south-west to Geelong where he established another of Fawkner’s titles, the Geelong Advertiser, in 1840. He would go on to own the Advertiser by September 1842.
Imagine the heady days of colonial life – a time when industrialisation was transforming the Australian economy and bringing the world a step closer. A Scotsman by birth and printer by trade, James Harrison found a country still 64 years shy of federation when he emigrated to Sydney in 1837.
A man of many talents and interests, Harrison played a distinguished role in public office too – first as an inaugural member of Geelong’s first town council in 1850, and then as a representative of the Geelong and Geelong West electorates in the Victorian Parliament.
The then 21-year-old, having completed a printing apprenticeship in London, responded to an advertisement by London-based company Tegg & Co. for a compositor to join its Sydney office. Thus began Harrison’s contribution to Australia’s print media. Following contributions to Tegg & Co.’s short‑lived Literary News, and a stint with the Sydney Herald, Harrison headed south to Melbourne where he found work as a compositor with the Port Phillip Patriot. The Patriot was one of many print titles established by the city’s founding father, John Pascoe Fawkner. 10
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HVAC&R Nation
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www.airah.org.au/nation
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But it was Harrison’s interest in science that led him to his perhaps his greatest achievement. It started when he recognised there might be other uses for sulphuric ether than just for cleaning the removable type on his printing press. Experiments with the ether and a whorl coil from a heating apparatus followed.
February–March 2021
He was onto something, and after joining forces with blacksmith John Scott, the duo established an ice works on the banks of the Barwon River at Rocky Point (more about that location later). Harrison’s ether-vapour compression refrigeration system used a compressor to force ether through a condenser where it cooled and liquefied. The liquefied gas was then circulated through refrigeration coils, and vapourised again, cooling down the surrounding machine. In 1854, the first mechanically-made ice was made, and within a year Harrison had submitted his first patent titled Refrigerating Machine. According to Dr Roy Lang’s book James Harrison – Pioneering Genius, Harrison named ether or alcohol as the refrigerants and gave special directions for the use of ammonia or other gaseous solutions.
