"Ink and ice in his veins"
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This month, we celebrate the birthday of James Harrison, the Australian refrigeration pioneer who inspired the creation of AIRAH and had an enormous impact on journalism.

​This article appears in Ecolibrium, April 2020

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HVAC&R owes much to James Harrison. After making the trek from his native Scotland to the Australian colonies, Harrison charted a life of extraordinary achievement. Among his many notable accomplishments were the founding of newspapers that survive today, and of course, his astonishing refrigeration invention.
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Harrison was the first to create ice via mechanical means, laying the foundation for the Australian HVAC&R industry that later evolved, and of course, of AIRAH itself. It’s not for nothing Harrison is known as the “father of refrigeration”.

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EARLY
​LIFE

Harrison was born at Bonhill near Renton, Dunbartonshire, Scotland in 1816, the son of a salmon fisherman. When the family moved to Glasgow, he was apprenticed to a printer there, and was able to attend an evening college founded by Professor John Anderson (which eventually evolved into the University of Strathclyde) and later the Glasgow Mechanics’ Institution, where he specialised in chemistry and won two prizes for his essays.

After completing his printing apprenticeship in London, Harrison responded to an advertisement by London-based company Tegg & Co for a compositor to be based in its Sydney office. He emigrated there in 1837, aged 21.
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Following contributions to the first edition of Tegg’s short-lived Literary News, and a stint with the Sydney Herald, Harrison set out for the settlement of the newly named Melbourne. From there he eventually moved to seaside Geelong.

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After establishing the Geelong Advertiser in 1840 and eventually becoming its sole owner, Harrison became a respected pillar of the community. An inaugural member of the Geelong Council in 1850, Harrison represented the area in both the upper and lower houses of Victorian Parliament.

A man of eclectic talents, skills and interests, Harrison had long been intrigued by the science of refrigeration, as his achievements at the Glasgow Mechanics’ Institution testified.

And although refrigeration and journalism might seem odd companions, it was the latter that gave rise to the former in Harrison’s case.

While cleaning the Geelong Advertiser’s movable type on printing presses with sulfuric ether, he realised that the chemical could have other uses.

Experimentation with the ether and a whorl coil sourced from a heating apparatus followed.
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This led eventually to establishing, in partnership with blacksmith John Scott, an ice works on the banks of the Barwon River at Rocky Point

ODD
COMPANIONS

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DID YOU KNOW?

Not only was Harrison the founder of the Geelong Advertiser (which still exists today, and is part of the News stable), he was also an editor of The Age, now part of the Nine Entertainment Group.

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A
​LANDMARK
YEAR

The year of 1854 was an important one in Australian history. That December, the Eureka Stockade took place.

It was also the year when the first ice is reported to have been made by Harrison’s ether-vapour compression refrigeration system, which used a compressor to force ether through a condenser, where it cooled and liquefied. The liquefied gas was then circulated through refrigeration coils, and vaporised again, cooling down the surrounding machine.

By the following year, the system was refined such that he submitted his first patent application in Victoria – granted in February 1855 with the title “Refrigerating Machine”.
In 1857, Harrison travelled to Britain to commercially develop the invention. There he also applied for patents and formed a partnership with the engineering firm Siebe & Co in London. The first commercial Harrison-Siebe refrigeration machine was sold in 1857 to a London brewery. Further improvements and sales quickly followed so that by 1861, Harrison refrigeration machines were in use from London and Europe to Peru, Argentina, and Calcutta.
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After fine-tuning and exhibiting his invention, Harrison set up the machine in Melbourne, where he began producing slabs and blocks of ice of various weight.
In 1859, he founded the Victoria Ice Works in Franklin Street. The following year, Harrison ordered another machine for the establishment of the Sydney Ice Company, in partnership with P.N. Russell.

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Despite the pioneering work he did, Harrison’s obsession with refrigeration did not translate to sustained financial success. His attempts to establish shipboard refrigeration between Australia and the UK were an abject failure. This disappointment resulted in his life’s work remaining unfinished.
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Nevertheless, Harrison’s boldness, creativity and ingenuity will long be remembered, even as the Australian HVAC&R industry continues its unstinting evolution. 

OBSESSION AND
DISAPPOINTMENT

The Harrison tradition

In commemoration of Harrison, one of the industry’s true trail blazers, AIRAH bestows the James Harrison Medal.

The most prestigious award presented by AIRAH, it is only awarded to recipients of the highest calibre.

Harrison’s was a life characterised by exploration, curiosity, rigour, technological advancement and discovery. His dedicated though unfulfilled work paved the way for those who came behind.

This sentiment was immortalised on Harrison’s epitaph: “One soweth, another reapeth.”

​So it is with AIRAH, which was established a century ago in 1920, and to this day continues the pioneering work begun by the titan of refrigeration.

James Harrison Day is celebrated annually on April 17, James Harrison’s birthday

Click here for more from Ecolibrium

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For more on James Harrison – AIRAH's guiding light and the pioneer of refrigeration – click here.