"Ink and ice in his veins"
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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.
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”.
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”.
EARLY
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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. 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. |
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. 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
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