Melbourne has more than its fair-shair of Australian firsts...
One of the first women only gyms, in Victoria and possibly Australia, was established by Harriet Elphinstone-Dick, who lived from 1858 to 1902. Also known as Harriet Rowell, she was an early English and Australian swimming champion, and was known to be a pioneering physical fitness teacher.
She had an intense interest in physical fitness and in 1879 opened Melbourne's first women's only gymnasium, in the Queen Victoria Building, which used to stand where the Melbourne City Square is now.
Physical fitness for women was a popular idea of the 1880s and the gym attracted many of Melbourne's independent career women, particularly teachers from the city's growing number of private girls' schools.
Melbourne Zoo is the oldest zoo still operating in Australia having opened in 1862.
Both of Australia's first freight and passenger lifts were installed in Melbourne. The first freight lifts were installed in 1877 at Allan's Music Warehouse in Collins Street. The first passenger lifts were installed in 1884 in four apartment blocks on Queen Street.
Australia's first traffic lights were installed in 1928 on the Collins and Swanston Streets intersection.
The first public art gallery in Australia was the Melbourne Museum of Art. It later changed its name to the National Gallery of Victoria and was founded 24th May 1861.
Melbourne was host to Australia's first Olympic games in 1956.
Melbourne-based George Robertson was Australia's first regular book publisher published over 600 works from 1855 to 1890.
The University of Melbourne was the first university to admit women and it opened its doors to female undergraduates during 1874.
The first Federal Parliament was held at the Exhibition Building on 9th May 1901.
In 1864 Melbourne sculptor Charles Summers completed the first bronze casting by an Australian artist, the statue of explorers Burke and Wills. It was unveiled on 21st April 1865.
Australia's first literary club started in Melbourne in 1868 and was called the Yorick Club, named after one of the character's in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
The first anthropological film made by an Australian was made by University of Melbourne biologist W Baldwin Spencer in 1901, studying the rites of Northern Territory Aboriginals.
The first Australian built aeroplane was built by Melbourne engineer J C Tilley.
Australia's first manned balloon ascent took place in Melbourne, a balloon called The Australasian.
Melbourne was home to Australia's first pizza restaurant, opened 7 July 1966 and was called Little Italy, located in Lygon Street Carlton.
Australia's first comic came off the press in Melbourne in May 1934 and was called Fatty Finn's Weekly.
The brewery to first sell beer in cans (not bottles) was the Carlton United Breweries in January 1958.
The first Australian manufactured tractor was produced in 1909 in Melbourne called The McDonald Imperial.
Australia's first all female trade union was founded in Melbourne in 1882 and was called The Tailoresses Union.
The first tennis balls in Australia were manufactured in Melbourne in 1908 by Dunlop.
The first Australian made tanks, known as Sentinels were designed and produced in Melbourne during 1942.
Melbourne's Hall of Commerce became the home for Australia's first Stock Exchange in 1859.
St John's Ambulance established their first branch in Australia in Melbourne during 1883.
The route of the first public steam railway in Australia started in Flinders Street Melbourne and terminated at Port Melbourne in1854.
The first electric telegraph line in the Southern Hemisphere ran between Melbourne and Williamstown and it opened in 1854.
Polo was first played in Australia in 1875 at Albert Park.
WFE Liardet, proprietor of the Brighton Pier Hotel at Port Melbourne organized the first archery club in October 1840.
On 10 July 1869 the first bike race in Australia was held at the MCG and it was called The Royal Boneshakers Cycling Club.
The first school of its kind in Australia, opened in 1994 for aspiring young musos in Collingwood and was called The Rock 'n' Roll High School.
Australia's first drug trafficking conviction was in Melbourne in 1923 when Henry McEwan was found guilty for trafficking opium.
VICTORIAN FIRSTS
Victoria was the first state to introduce breathalyser tests in November 1961.
In 1970 Victoria was the first state in the world to make wearing seat belts compulsory in all Victorian registered motor vehicles. The rest of Australia did not follow suit until 1972.
Victoria was the first state to introduce air pollution control legislation in 1958.
Victoria was the first Australian state to choose a floral emblem.
The Leadbeater's Possum lives only in Victoria, between Marysville and Tanjil Bren.
Victoria was the first state with its own flag. Victoria was the first colony to purchase a warship, which necessitated a flag, in 1870.
1. First female war artist
Nora Heysen AM, daughter of legendary landscape painter Hans Heysen, was the first modern official war artist. Commissioned in 1943 during World War II, she began by painting studio portraits of the commanding officers of the women’s auxiliary services. But in 1944 she was given the chance to worked closer to the action in New Guinea, although she was frustrated by a lack of facilities for women and wasn’t able to travel to the front there. She was paid the same amount as her male counterparts for this dangerous work, eventually marrying a doctor she met in New Guinea. Her completed portfolio included 170 paintings and drawings.
2. First crouch-start
In 1887 Bobby McDonald, a talented young indigenous runner from Cummeragunga Mission in northern Victoria, became the first person to officially begin a running race using a crouch-start. He later explained that he’d been using position for a while. He talked of discovering its advantage by accident when a starter began a race while he was crouched down to avoid the cold wind while waiting at the start line. This start position was adopted by many competitive runners and is still used today, although the competitive advantage of starting from this position is debated.
3. First refrigeration
In the 1850s, James Harrison, a Scottish born resident of Geelong, Vic., designed the first commercially-viable ice-making machine and refrigerator. A few scientists had previously experimented with refrigeration concepts, but none had practically applied it to something that could be used to store food. In 1873 he won a gold medal at the Melbourne Exhibition by proving that frozen meat remained edible for months. His designs were taken up wholeheartedly by the Australian beer and meat industries, but he hit a snag when he tried to export frozen meat to England. En route, the refrigeration system failed and the meat was spoiled. Harrison returned to his other profession as a journalist.
4. Inventor of the first military tank
Australian Lancelot de Mole was the first person to design a tank in 1911 and submitted his design to the British War Office in 1912. However, through a series of bureaucratic bungles his design submissions were rejected several times both before and during WWI. But very similar tanks emerged on the British battlefield in 1916. De Mole raised the issue and in 1920 he was awarded financial compensation and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of this botched process.
5. First to film combat
South Australian, Sir George Hubert Wilkins was the first person to capture footage of combat in action during the first Balkan War (1912-1913). Wilkins, however, became a veteran of firsts after this: he was also the first to complete a trans-Arctic crossing by air, and the first to fly over Antarctica, both in 1928. As a result of these, and his many other polar adventures, there are a number Antarctic landforms named after him, including Wilkins Sound, Wilkins Coast and the Wilkins Ice Shelf. He also became the first person to sail under polar ice floes in 1931. During the Wilkins-Ellsworth trans-Artic expedition, he set out to prove sailing under polar ice was possible by taking a submarine below arctic icefloes, which they did briefly.
6. Advances in tennis racket design
Unable to afford his own tennis racquet, Tasmanian Alfred Alexander made his own in 1922. He perfected a dry-bent, cross-grain, alternating-layer laminating process. It created a strong racquet frame that was quickly in international demand. His patent led to the Alexander Patent Racket Company, the largest manufacturer of sporting goods in the world at the time. Australian Champion, Jack Crawford won Wimbledon in 1933 using one of Alexander’s rackets marketed under the name Cressy. The company went into liquidation in 1961 and was bought by Spalding.
7. First automatic vinyl record-changer
Tasmanian born and raised Eric Waterworth designed the first stepped-spindle record-changer, allowing six vinyl records to be automatically played in sequence – demonstrating it to politicians and business men in Hobart in 1925. Business and economic issues hampered its market release in both Australia and England. After the patents lapsed a British company launched the same product.
8. First women to sail around the world west to east
Kay Cottee was born into a Sydney sailing family. In 1988 she became the first woman to sail solo and non-stop around the globe west to east, and south of the five southern-most capes. On 29 November 1987 she sailed out of Sydney heads on Blackmores First Lady and started a voyage that lasted 189 days. Combating wild seas, being washed overboard and boat damage that she repaired as she sailed, Cottee returned to Sydney on 5 June 1988.
9. First Aboriginal Australian ambassador
Woollarrawarre Bennelong was a Wangal man kidnapped in 1789 by European settlers at Manly Cove, NSW. He became the first official ambassador between the British and Aboriginal peoples after a period of imprisonment. He voluntarily helped explained indigenous life to the NSW colony’s governor, Arthur Phillip and later travelled to England, the first Aboriginal Australian to do so. His unique life has resulted in a number of places being named after him including the point that the Sydney Opera House sits on and a federal electoral district in northern Sydney. This Sydney seat was, for a long period of time, held by former Prime Minister John Howard.
10. Crankless engine
One of Anthony George Maldon Michell many significant contributions includes the crankless engine. In 1920 he formed Crankless Engines (Australia) Pty Ltd to commercialise his 1917 invention of this efficient engine that was balanced at all speeds. It was tested in the USA by General Motors and Ford who both highlighted it was better than their own, but was not enough to warrant the cost of changing their engine-manufacturing tools. Refined by many inventors over the years, today versions of this engine are used to propel torpedos and in air compressor pumps.
Chrystopher Spicer’s book Great Australian World Firsts lists many more Australian firsts.
Melbourne has more than its fair-shair of Australian firsts...
One of the first women only gyms, in Victoria and possibly Australia, was established by Harriet Elphinstone-Dick, who lived from 1858 to 1902. Also known as Harriet Rowell, she was an early English and Australian swimming champion, and was known to be a pioneering physical fitness teacher.
She had an intense interest in physical fitness and in 1879 opened Melbourne's first women's only gymnasium, in the Queen Victoria Building, which used to stand where the Melbourne City Square is now.
Physical fitness for women was a popular idea of the 1880s and the gym attracted many of Melbourne's independent career women, particularly teachers from the city's growing number of private girls' schools.
Melbourne Zoo is the oldest zoo still operating in Australia having opened in 1862.
Both of Australia's first freight and passenger lifts were installed in Melbourne. The first freight lifts were installed in 1877 at Allan's Music Warehouse in Collins Street. The first passenger lifts were installed in 1884 in four apartment blocks on Queen Street.
Australia's first traffic lights were installed in 1928 on the Collins and Swanston Streets intersection.
The first public art gallery in Australia was the Melbourne Museum of Art. It later changed its name to the National Gallery of Victoria and was founded 24th May 1861.
Melbourne was host to Australia's first Olympic games in 1956.
Melbourne-based George Robertson was Australia's first regular book publisher published over 600 works from 1855 to 1890.
The University of Melbourne was the first university to admit women and it opened its doors to female undergraduates during 1874.
The first Federal Parliament was held at the Exhibition Building on 9th May 1901.
In 1864 Melbourne sculptor Charles Summers completed the first bronze casting by an Australian artist, the statue of explorers Burke and Wills. It was unveiled on 21st April 1865.
Australia's first literary club started in Melbourne in 1868 and was called the Yorick Club, named after one of the character's in Shakespeare's Hamlet.
The first anthropological film made by an Australian was made by University of Melbourne biologist W Baldwin Spencer in 1901, studying the rites of Northern Territory Aboriginals.
The first Australian built aeroplane was built by Melbourne engineer J C Tilley.
Australia's first manned balloon ascent took place in Melbourne, a balloon called The Australasian.
Melbourne was home to Australia's first pizza restaurant, opened 7 July 1966 and was called Little Italy, located in Lygon Street Carlton.
Australia's first comic came off the press in Melbourne in May 1934 and was called Fatty Finn's Weekly.
The brewery to first sell beer in cans (not bottles) was the Carlton United Breweries in January 1958.
The first Australian manufactured tractor was produced in 1909 in Melbourne called The McDonald Imperial.
Australia's first all female trade union was founded in Melbourne in 1882 and was called The Tailoresses Union.
The first tennis balls in Australia were manufactured in Melbourne in 1908 by Dunlop.
The first Australian made tanks, known as Sentinels were designed and produced in Melbourne during 1942.
Melbourne's Hall of Commerce became the home for Australia's first Stock Exchange in 1859.
St John's Ambulance established their first branch in Australia in Melbourne during 1883.
The route of the first public steam railway in Australia started in Flinders Street Melbourne and terminated at Port Melbourne in1854.
The first electric telegraph line in the Southern Hemisphere ran between Melbourne and Williamstown and it opened in 1854.
Polo was first played in Australia in 1875 at Albert Park.
WFE Liardet, proprietor of the Brighton Pier Hotel at Port Melbourne organized the first archery club in October 1840.
On 10 July 1869 the first bike race in Australia was held at the MCG and it was called The Royal Boneshakers Cycling Club.
The first school of its kind in Australia, opened in 1994 for aspiring young musos in Collingwood and was called The Rock 'n' Roll High School.
Australia's first drug trafficking conviction was in Melbourne in 1923 when Henry McEwan was found guilty for trafficking opium.
VICTORIAN FIRSTS
Victoria was the first state to introduce breathalyser tests in November 1961.
In 1970 Victoria was the first state in the world to make wearing seat belts compulsory in all Victorian registered motor vehicles. The rest of Australia did not follow suit until 1972.
Victoria was the first state to introduce air pollution control legislation in 1958.
Victoria was the first Australian state to choose a floral emblem.
The Leadbeater's Possum lives only in Victoria, between Marysville and Tanjil Bren.
Victoria was the first state with its own flag. Victoria was the first colony to purchase a warship, which necessitated a flag, in 1870.
Top 10 Aussie firsts we’ve never heard of
By australiangeographic.com.au - 27 January 2015
1. First female war artist
Nora Heysen AM, daughter of legendary landscape painter Hans Heysen, was the first modern official war artist. Commissioned in 1943 during World War II, she began by painting studio portraits of the commanding officers of the women’s auxiliary services. But in 1944 she was given the chance to worked closer to the action in New Guinea, although she was frustrated by a lack of facilities for women and wasn’t able to travel to the front there. She was paid the same amount as her male counterparts for this dangerous work, eventually marrying a doctor she met in New Guinea. Her completed portfolio included 170 paintings and drawings.
2. First crouch-start
In 1887 Bobby McDonald, a talented young indigenous runner from Cummeragunga Mission in northern Victoria, became the first person to officially begin a running race using a crouch-start. He later explained that he’d been using position for a while. He talked of discovering its advantage by accident when a starter began a race while he was crouched down to avoid the cold wind while waiting at the start line. This start position was adopted by many competitive runners and is still used today, although the competitive advantage of starting from this position is debated.
3. First refrigeration
In the 1850s, James Harrison, a Scottish born resident of Geelong, Vic., designed the first commercially-viable ice-making machine and refrigerator. A few scientists had previously experimented with refrigeration concepts, but none had practically applied it to something that could be used to store food. In 1873 he won a gold medal at the Melbourne Exhibition by proving that frozen meat remained edible for months. His designs were taken up wholeheartedly by the Australian beer and meat industries, but he hit a snag when he tried to export frozen meat to England. En route, the refrigeration system failed and the meat was spoiled. Harrison returned to his other profession as a journalist.
4. Inventor of the first military tank
Australian Lancelot de Mole was the first person to design a tank in 1911 and submitted his design to the British War Office in 1912. However, through a series of bureaucratic bungles his design submissions were rejected several times both before and during WWI. But very similar tanks emerged on the British battlefield in 1916. De Mole raised the issue and in 1920 he was awarded financial compensation and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of this botched process.
5. First to film combat
South Australian, Sir George Hubert Wilkins was the first person to capture footage of combat in action during the first Balkan War (1912-1913). Wilkins, however, became a veteran of firsts after this: he was also the first to complete a trans-Arctic crossing by air, and the first to fly over Antarctica, both in 1928. As a result of these, and his many other polar adventures, there are a number Antarctic landforms named after him, including Wilkins Sound, Wilkins Coast and the Wilkins Ice Shelf. He also became the first person to sail under polar ice floes in 1931. During the Wilkins-Ellsworth trans-Artic expedition, he set out to prove sailing under polar ice was possible by taking a submarine below arctic icefloes, which they did briefly.
6. Advances in tennis racket design
Unable to afford his own tennis racquet, Tasmanian Alfred Alexander made his own in 1922. He perfected a dry-bent, cross-grain, alternating-layer laminating process. It created a strong racquet frame that was quickly in international demand. His patent led to the Alexander Patent Racket Company, the largest manufacturer of sporting goods in the world at the time. Australian Champion, Jack Crawford won Wimbledon in 1933 using one of Alexander’s rackets marketed under the name Cressy. The company went into liquidation in 1961 and was bought by Spalding.
7. First automatic vinyl record-changer
Tasmanian born and raised Eric Waterworth designed the first stepped-spindle record-changer, allowing six vinyl records to be automatically played in sequence – demonstrating it to politicians and business men in Hobart in 1925. Business and economic issues hampered its market release in both Australia and England. After the patents lapsed a British company launched the same product.
8. First women to sail around the world west to east
Kay Cottee was born into a Sydney sailing family. In 1988 she became the first woman to sail solo and non-stop around the globe west to east, and south of the five southern-most capes. On 29 November 1987 she sailed out of Sydney heads on Blackmores First Lady and started a voyage that lasted 189 days. Combating wild seas, being washed overboard and boat damage that she repaired as she sailed, Cottee returned to Sydney on 5 June 1988.
9. First Aboriginal Australian ambassador
Woollarrawarre Bennelong was a Wangal man kidnapped in 1789 by European settlers at Manly Cove, NSW. He became the first official ambassador between the British and Aboriginal peoples after a period of imprisonment. He voluntarily helped explained indigenous life to the NSW colony’s governor, Arthur Phillip and later travelled to England, the first Aboriginal Australian to do so. His unique life has resulted in a number of places being named after him including the point that the Sydney Opera House sits on and a federal electoral district in northern Sydney. This Sydney seat was, for a long period of time, held by former Prime Minister John Howard.
10. Crankless engine
One of Anthony George Maldon Michell many significant contributions includes the crankless engine. In 1920 he formed Crankless Engines (Australia) Pty Ltd to commercialise his 1917 invention of this efficient engine that was balanced at all speeds. It was tested in the USA by General Motors and Ford who both highlighted it was better than their own, but was not enough to warrant the cost of changing their engine-manufacturing tools. Refined by many inventors over the years, today versions of this engine are used to propel torpedos and in air compressor pumps.
Chrystopher Spicer’s book Great Australian World Firsts lists many more Australian firsts.
