They Made Australia Inventions & Innovations: Australian ideas changing the world by Stuart Bremer ISBN 978 086427 294 2 Published in electronic format by Trocadero Publishing GPO Box 1546 Sydney NSW 2001 Australia ABN 28003214748 [email protected] www.trocadero.com.au Created and produced in Australia Copyright © 2013 S and L Brodie The information in this eBook was current at the time of writing IMPORTANT NOTICE This work is protected under Australian and international copyright laws and conventions. No part of this work may be copied, duplicated, saved to another system, stored in any electronic or other system, or reproduced in any shape or form without the written permission of the copyright owners and the publisher. This copy is licensed only to the purchaser and may not be passed on to any other person or organisation in electronic, printed, or any other form. By accessing this eBook you are bound by international copyright laws. 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THEY MADE AUSTRALIA Other books in this series Women Who Made Australian History * Other Trocadero series AUSTRALIAN TIMELINES THE NATIONAL IDENTITY The Governors 1788–1850 Faiths, Religions, Beliefs in Modern Australia Immigration Since 1788 Australian Origins Prime Ministers and Their Governments Volume 1: Afghanistan to Italy Volume 2: Japan to Zimbabwe The Constitution: The Document that Created the Nation Immigrants Who Changed Australia Exploration and Settlement in Colonial Australia LINKING THE NATION The Commonwealth of Australia: Australia’s Airlines: Evolving into a Nation How the Skies Were Conquered Gold: Instant Wealth and Long-term Prosperity Australia’s Railways: Convicts: The Story of the Penal Settlements How the Land Was Conquered that Created Australia DEFENDING AUSTRALIA The States: Their Place in Federal Australia World War I: The Australian Experience About the Money: Australia’s Economic History World War II: The Australian Experience Australia at the Time of Federation The Cold War: Australia in Korea, Malaya, Vietnam Bushrangers: Australia’s Wild Colonial Boys The Anzac Spirit: Australia’s Military Legend AUSTRALIA YEAR BY YEAR ASIA-PACIFIC TIMELINES 1788 to 1809: From First Fleet to Rum Rebellion European Colonialism in the Asia-Pacific 1810 to 1845: From the Macquarie Era Shogunate Japan: 800 Years of Military Control to Ending Transportation Imperial China * AUSTRALIAN DECADES ASIA-PACIFIC RELATIONS The 1950s: Building a New Australia Australia’s Pacific Neighbours The 1960s: Reshaping Australian Society Australia’s Asian Neighbours The 1970s: It’s Time for Change Japan: The Story of the Nation GLOBAL INFLUENCES China: The Story of the Nation The Industrial Revolution and India: The Story of the Nation its Impact on Australia Indonesia: The Story of the Nation AUSTRALIAN SOCIETY Influencing Australia AUSTRALIAN INFRASTRUCTURE How Communications United Australia * Please check www.trocadero.com.au for publication date Grain stripper-harvester 2 Utility 13 Interscan 24 Secret ballot 2 Owen gun 14 Bionic ear 24 Refrigeration 3 Shepherd castor 14 Synroc 25 Coastal defence torpedo 3 Hills hoist 15 Dual flush toilet 26 Stump-jump plough 4 Holden car 15 Baby safety capsule 26 Mechanical wool clippers 4 Xerographic tones 16 Wave-piercing catamaran 26 Sunshine harvester 5 Victa mower 17 Polymer banknotes 27 Coolgardie safe 6 Solar hot water 17 Polilight forensic lamp 28 Principles of flight 7 Atomic absorption Spray-on skin 28 spectrophotometer 18 Froth flotation 8 Wi-fi, LAN 29 Sugar cane harvester 19 Mitchell thrust bearing 8 Portable retinal camera 29 Flight data recorder 19 Humespun pipe 9 Programmable Ultrasound scanner 20 turning bed 30 Rotary hoe 10 Bogie exchange 21 Bionic Vision 30 Automatic totalisator 10 Inflatable escape slide 21 Quantum bit 31 Aspro 11 Sirotherm 22 National Broadband Pedal wireless 12 Network 31 Self-twist yarn spinner 22 Artificial heart pacemaker 13 Orbital engine 23 Index 32 For links to websites of interest, please go to www.trocadero.com.au/inventions Edited by Lynn Brodie ISBN 978 086427 294 2 Copyright © 2013 S and L Brodie All rights reserved Published by Trocadero Publishing GPO Box 1546 Sydney NSW 2001 Australia www.trocadero.com.au 2 Ridley’s machine was pushed through the fields by a team of horses, stripping just the G rain heads off the wheat and leaving the stalks. The crop was collected in a bin on the stripper-harvester harvester rather than being left for workers John Bull, John Ridley 1843 to collect. Within three years more than 100 Ridley The grain stripper-harvester was one of Stripper-Harvesters were in use in South the first inventions of colonial Australia. Its Australia. Each could do the work of five development was prompted by a shortage of labourers. The concept quickly spread across harvest workers during the 1840s. The Corn the world. Exchange Committee was formed to address Bull’s contribution was finally recognised the problem, and offered a reward of £40 in 1883 when the South Australian Parliament [about $8000 today] to anyone who invented made a payment to him of £250 [about a viable harvesting machine. $38000 today]. In 1843 there were 17000hectares of wheat ready for harvesting around Christmas S in South Australia. A frustrated farmer, John ecret ballot Bull, was desperate to encourage greater 1856 productivity from his labourers. While John Bull (top) John Ridley (above) instructing them in how to harvest the wheat by brushing it through their hands, he hit When the colonies of Victoria and South on an idea. Australia conducted elections in 1856, they Bull quickly designed a machine with a introduced a radical new comb and cutters that would chop the heads system of voting. Until off the wheat. In 1844 he demonstrated his 1838 VOTE this time the usual New South Wales Yes concept to the Committee, but it refused to No method was for those colonial post office back him. introduces world’s eligible to vote to first pre-paid At much the same time, an Adelaide mill gather in a large postagesystem. owner and copper miner, John Ridley, built room or hall. There a prototype harvester similar to Bull’s. He was was a show of hands immediately accused of pirating Bull’s design. when candidates’ names Harvesting grain on Queensland’s Darling were called out. Downs in the 19th century The new system was the secret ballot. It involved each voter going into a booth where they recorded their vote on a piece of paper. The paper was then placed in a secure box, which was not opened until voting had finished. It was subsequently adopted by all Australian colonies. The secret ballot was adopted by Britain in 1872 for all parliamentary and municipal elections. The USA, where it is still often referred to as the Australian ballot, adopted the process after 1884. 3 restrictions were placed on the equipment by insurers, who were fearful of fire. This, R efrigeration combined with the inexperience of the crew in handling the meat, meant the venture James Harrison 1856 failed. Harrison was bankrupted. His work was taken over by French In the 1840s fresh produce such as meat immigrant Eugene Nicolle. He substituted and dairy products could be transported only liquid ammonia for ether. Gradually the short distances before it spoiled. Ice was technology advanced to the point where available, but it was imported from cold refrigerated meat shipments to Britain were James Harrison climates by ship, making it very expensive. technically and financially viable. Refrigeration was the great invention that made export of Australian dairy and meat C products possible. oastal defence James Harrison was publisher of the torpedo Geelong Advertisernewspaper in Victoria. While using ether to clean printing Louis Brennan 1874 1858 equipment, he discovered it made the metal The evolution of Australian Rules cold. Intrigued, he circulated ether through Unlike most inventors, Irish immigrant football begins with a a coil and immersed it in Louis Brennan was showered game at Richmond Paddock, adjacent to water, which immediately with money when he the Melbourne Cricket froze. Harrison had created invented a guided torpedo Ground, on 31July. artificial ice. By 1857 he was for military use. It was intended as a way of keeping producing 3tonnes each day In 1874, at the age of 22, cricketers fit through in an ice factory on the banks he created a device with two the winter months. of the Barwon River. wires attached — one for By 1860, in financial steering and one for speed. trouble, the Advertiserwas no The explosive-packed longer able to support his torpedo could be controlled experiments. He moved to from on board a ship and Melbourne as editor of the Age recovered if it failed. newspaper. Harrison built Victoria’s colonial Louis Brennan another iceworks that government gave him £700 The refrigerated room on produced 10tonnes per day, but the ship Strathleven [about $100000 today} to he had trouble selling the output. develop his idea. In 1877 the At the 1873 International A version of Brennan’s British defence authorities had coastal defence torpedo Exhibition he displayed a box of foodstuffs that had been frozen for 97days. When opened it was as fresh as the day it was packed, winning him a gold medal for his invention. Harrison’s next move was to ship a cargo of refrigerated meat to Britain. Severe 4 the device tested by the Royal Engineers in over obstructions. It won first prize at the England. Their enthusiastic reaction led to 1876 Moonta Agricultural Show. Richard Bowyer Smith Brennan’s being put on a salary to conduct Smith took out a provisional patent for five years of intensive research. the stump-jump plough in 1877. Lack of The British paid him £110000 [about success selling his idea, however, meant he A$15million today] for the design, which could not afford to renew the registration caused controversy in the British parliament. the following year. Others began to Even so, Brennan was appointed supervisor manufacture similar designs; some even of the factory making the torpedoes. claimed credit for inventing it. Clarence Smith further refined his brother’s work. Supported by the Adelaide firm of S tump-jump plough Harris Scarfe, he established a small factory at Ardrossan in 1880. In later years Clarence Richard Bowyer Smith 1876 was credited as the inventor, which was hotly disputed by Richard. Farmers working in the mallee country of The stump-jump plough caused a north-western Victoria and South Australia revolution in Australian agriculture. Without constantly suffered damage to their ploughs. it, large areas of Australia might never have Mallee trees were relatively easy to clear, but been cultivated. the roots they left behind were heavy and tough, requiring a huge effort to shift them. M echanical wool clippers Frederick Wolseley 1877 From the 1830s Australia’s economy was heavily dependent on wool. Removing the wool from sheep was a back-breaking task using large manual clippers. For decades A stump-jump plough being used in the Shearers use manual clippers in Tom mallee country Roberts’ painting Shearing the Rams After one of his plough shares was broken on a root, farmer Richard Smith opted to continue rather than repair it. He was surprised when the broken share did not catch on submerged roots. Instead, it eased itself over them. With his brother Clarence, Smith developed a new type of plough. Instead of the usual rigid bolts holding the shares in place, he suspended them on a single link. This enabled the shares to tip back and ride 5 wool growers sought to mechanise the machines on his property, Dunlop, in 1888. shearing process. It took some time for Wolseley employees Frederick York Wolseley, son of an to talk the shearers into using them. Dunlop aristocratic British family, arrived in Victoria became the first station to have its entire in 1854. He worked as a jackaroo on sheep flock sheared mechanically. stations for a time before buying interests in Although the use of Wolseley shears grew several of them. steadily, in 1889 the deteriorating economy Financed by his brother, Garnet Viscount made it difficult to raise finance. Wolseley Wolseley, he went to work developing a returned to England, where he established a mechanical shearing device. By 1872 he had factory at Birmingham to make shearing a working prototype in Robert Savage’s machines for export to Australia. Frederick Wolseley Melbourne engineering workshop. In 1876 Wolseley began trials at his Eurola station. After a visit to England he An early Sunshine harvester 1889 On 20August Arthur Arnot, an employee of the Union Electric Company, is granted a patent for the world’s first electric drill. He intends it for use in mines to break rocks and excavate coal. For mechanical sheep shearing, the clippers are driven by a shaft above the shearers’ heads S unshine harvester Hugh V McKay 1885 further refined his prototype. George Gray, HughV McKay the man who hand-forged the parts, was the Hugh McKay was the fifth of twelve first person to shear a sheep mechanically. children in a poor farming family at In 1885 Wolseley arranged public Drummartin, Victoria. The job on the farm demonstrations. In the first of these an that he hated most was winnowing. This experienced shearer was able to beat the involved a machine that blasted air to separate machine with manual clippers. However, the wheat grain from the chaff. when the mechanical clippers were run over At the age of 17 he came up with the idea the shorn sheep, they yielded a further of integrating the winnowing process with kilogram of wool. the work done by existing stripper-harvesters. A major breakthrough was grazier Samuel His tradesman brother Nathaniel helped McCaughey’s installation of 40 Wolseley him build a frame and set the bearings. 6 than 3000 workers. The site included a model town with houses and other facilities for McKay’s employees. In the 1920s the firm merged with the Canadian Massey Harris company. In the 1950s McKay’s descendants sold out to the new Massey Ferguson conglomerate. On his death in 1926, HVMcKay left an estate of £1.4million [about $100million today]. C oolgardie safe Newly built harvesters await dispatch from the Sunshine Works near Melbourne Arthur McCormack 1892 1902 Launceston stationer The Coolgardie Safe was a relatively simple JABirchall creates the Another brother, George, fashioned the notepad, backing creation that made life just a little bit easier sheets of paper with a ironwork. Their father financed them to the for people in remote regions. piece of cardboard and extent of £20 [about $3000 today] from the pasting glue along the As its name suggests, it came into top edge. family’s savings. widespread use on the Coolgardie goldfields Birchall’s remains in The prototype was first tested at the end in the 1890s. With its intense heat and business today. of the harvest in February 1884. Once a few shortage of water, the region was a tough bugs were ironed out, McKay patented the place to survive. 1906 winnowing device. Arthur McCormack adopted the principle Kiwi boot polishis first He struggled in his efforts to licence it to used by explorers to keep water cool and made by William established harvester manufacturers. Finally, Ramsay and Hamilton minimise evaporation. Hessian sheets were McKellan. It goes on to McKay convinced Melbourne ploughmakers hung over a wooden frame and dipped into become the world’s McCalman & Garde to construct five largest selling polish, a galvanised iron container filled with water. with more than 50per machines for the 1885 harvest. The hessian slowly soaked up water along cent of the US and His first business, the McKay Harvester British markets today. its full length. Company of Ballarat, collapsed in 1892 during The safe was placed on a veranda where the economic depression. Starting again breezes could help the water evaporate, almost immediately, by 1894 he had a factory cooling the interior of the safe. Perishable in Yuille Street, Ballarat. foodstuffs were placed inside to retain By the turn of the century the Sunshine freshness for a longer time. Harvester Works, as it was now known, With many refinements, Coolgardie safes desperately needed larger premises. Sunshine remained a feature of remote areas until the harvesters were in huge demand around the mid-20th century. By that time refrigeration world. In 1904 McKay took over the financially had become widespread. troubled Braybrook Engineering Works north of Melbourne. Operations were transferred to the site and the area renamed Sunshine in 1907. Sunshine became Australia’s largest manufacturing concern. It employed more A later design of the Coolgardie safe 7 Hargrave with his kites at Stanwell Park in 1891 Moving to ideas of powered flight, he designed a single-cylinder, compressed-air motor operating two flappers. This evolved into a radial rotary engine, which he did not patent. It was later successfully adopted by French manufacturers. He turned his attention to the lifting power of curved surfaces, Lawrence Hargrave working with kites. Hargrave used the high windswept cliffs of Stanwell Park, P rinciples south of Sydney, to carry out his experiments from 1893. of flight On 2November the following year, using 1906 Lawrence Hargrave 1894 four linked kites, he was lifted almost The Story of the Kelly 5metres off the ground in a 30km/h wind. Gangis first screened Although he never benefited personally, From this he moved on to experiments with at the Athenaeum in Lawrence Hargrave was a major contributor gliders. His research on the lifting power of Melbourne. Although it is a silent film , to the development of aviation. deep parabolic surfaces influenced designs producers Dan Barry In 1856, at the age of six, he was left in a used by the Wright brothers, among others. and Charles Tait create a range of live sound British boarding school while his parents Hargrave’s greatest problem was poor effects and have a emigrated to New South Wales. He next saw communication skills. In London in 1899, he narrator in the theatre. them ten years later on his arrival in Sydney. was invited to address the Aeronautical At just over one hour, it is the world’s first He resisted his father’s demands that he Society. It was a disaster: few in the audience feature-length film. follow him into the law. With a natural could grasp what he was talking about. aptitude for engineering, Hargrave became Within a few years his enthusiasm had an apprentice with a shipping company. He waned, and by 1909 his finances had expired. subsequently went on expeditions in Papua On his death in 1915 he left his papers and New Guinea’s Fly River region. models to the Munich Museum in Germany. By the 1880s he was obsessed with the Had he been a better communicator, The Wright Brothers’ principles of flight. After seeing an ascent Hargrave could have been one of the great first flight at Kitty Hawk by balloon in Sydney in 1870 he designed his aeronautical figures of the early 20th century. in the USA. They benefited greatly from own ‘flying machine’. Gifts of property from Hargrave’s research. his father gave him an income that enabled Hargrave to pursue his interests. Like most aviation pioneers, he was preoccupied with copying the actions of birds. He did, however, also study forward motion in other animals to apply it to flight. From this came his ornithopter, powered by rubber bands that flapped wings. One version flew 30metres.