| 1838 |
Pre-paid postage World first issued by NSW Post Office. |
| 1843 |
Grain stripper John Ridley & John Bull, South Australia. Strips grain head from stalk and delivers it into a bin for winnowing. |
| 1850 |
Refrigeration plant Geelong publisher, James Harrison, built world's first mechanical refrigeration plant. |
| 1876 |
Stump-jump plough Robert Bowyer Smith from South Australia's Mallee country developed a plough that could jump over stumps and stones, instead of being caught and damaged by them. |
| 1882 |
Stripper harvester Conceived by Hugh Victor McKay from Drummartin, Victoria when just 17 years old. Harvesting machine that can strip, thresh, winnow and bag grain in one continuous operation. |
| 1884 |
Box kite Sydney aeronautical inventor, Lawrence Hargrave, conducted experimental flights with box kites, pioneering the way for heavier than air flight. |
| 1885 |
Telephane Henry Sutton, Victoria. Forerunner of the television. |
| 1886 |
Windmill James Alston built the first all-steel circular windmill as a source of power for lifting underground water to the surface |
| 1889 |
Electric drill Arthur James Arnot from Melbourne patented the world's first electric drill. |
| 1889 |
Radial rotary engine Howard Hargrave developed an engine with revolving cylinders attached to propellor blades and powered by compressed air. It played a major part in the development of aviation in Europe. |
| 1897 |
Differential gears David Shearer, South Australia, built a steam car with a differential inside left rear wheel hub. |
| 1898 |
Teleprinter Donald Murray, Sydney, invented the teleprinter for recording messages onto a tape. |
| 1903 |
Froth flotation process Charles Potter and Guillaume Delprat, NSW, developed a process for separating minerals from rock by flotation. |
| 1905 |
Thrust bearing A.G.M. Michell invented the tilt-pad thrust bearing which revolutionised thrust technology. |
| 1906 |
Feature film The world's first feature length film, more than one hour long, The Story of the Kelly Gang was made in Australia and screened in Melbourne. |
| 1906 |
Surf-lifesaving reel Invented by Lyster Ormsby, first Captain of the Bondi Surf Lifesaving Club. First person to be rescued was Charlie Smith in 1907. He later became the famous aviator, Sir Charles Kingsford Smith. |
| 1907 |
Xerography Professor O.U. Vonwiller at The University of Sydney developed a dry-copy imaging process, the forerunner of Xerox copying. |
| 1910 |
Hume pipe Walter Hume invented the spun concrete pipe, made using a centrifugal process which expels the water and makes a dense, strong pipe. |
| 1913 |
Automatic totalisator George Julius invented a system to display odds and automatically calculate dividends for race meetings. |
| 1924 |
Car radio The first car radio was fitted to an Australian car built by Kellys Motors in New South Wales. |
| 1925 |
Electric record changing salonola Tasmanian Eric Waterworth invented the stepped centre spindle later used in record changers worldwide. |
| 1925 |
Pedal wireless Alfred Traeger from Adelaide invented a simple radio transceiver powered by a pedal generator. |
| 1925 |
Latex gloves Developed by Eric Ansell. His company introduced disposable medical gloves in 1964. Now world's largest producer of latex gloves. |
| 1928 |
Flying doctor service Dr Kenyon Welsh and pilot, Arthur Affleck began operating the first flying doctor service out of Cloncurry, Queensland. |
| 1930 |
Letter sorting machine Built by A B Corbett, an engineer with Post Master General's Department in Sydney. |
| 1934 |
Utility vehicle The utility vehicle, with a front like a car and a rear like a truck was designed by Lewis Brandt at the Ford Motor Company in Geelong, Victoria. |
| 1935 |
Penicillin Sir Howard Florey grew the mould detected by Fleming, extracted the penicillin drug, refined and tested it. |
| 1946 |
Castors George Shepherd invented the dome shaped castor with an oil trap to keep the working parts permanently lubricated. |
| 1952 |
Atomic absorption spectrophotometer Sir Alan Walsh of the CSIRO invented a precision instrument for the high-speed analysis of trace quantities of metallic elements in solids or liquids. |
| 1953 |
Solar hot water Developed by R N Morse at CSIRO in Victoria. |
| 1956 |
T-VASIS visual landing system Developed by Aeronautical Research Laboratory, a set of light patterns on either side of the runway shows if the plane is on the correct landing approach. |
| 1958 |
Black box flight recorder Dr David Warren from Melbourne invented the black box voice and instrument data recorder. |
| 1965 |
Inflatable aircraft escape slide Jack Grant from Qantas invented the inflatable aircraft escape slide, which doubles as a raft. |
| 1965 |
Wine cask Angoves in South Australia developed an airless-flow method of packaging wine in a plastic bag. Later fitted with dispensing tap by Wynns in 1969. |
| 1970 |
Variable ratio rack and pinion steering Australian engineer Arthur Bishop developed variable ratio rack and pinion steering now used extensively in world automobiles. |
| 1971 |
Interscan Invented by Brian O'Keefe and Dr Paul Wild, the microwave landing guidance system is now the international standard for instrument approach landing. |
| 1979 |
Bionic Ear Professor Graeme Clark from the University of Melbourne developed the Cochlear implant, a device which restores a measure of hearing to the profoundly deaf. |
| 1980 |
Wave-piercing catamarans Developed by Phillip Hercus and Robert Clifford of Incat in Tasmania. High speed passenger ferries more efficient and comfortable. |
| 1981 |
Earth leakage circuit breaker Developed by Adelaide based Gerard Industries. |
| 1984 |
Frozen embryo baby The first frozen embryo baby was born at the Queen Victoria Medical Centre in Melbourne. |
| 1984 |
Continuous self-cleaning micro filtration A group of engineers and scientists led by Dr Doug Ford invented continuous self-cleaning micro filtration. |
| 1985 |
Gene shears CSIRO scientists, Wayne Gerlach and Jim Haseloff discovered a way of preventing harmful genes in plants and animals from doing their work. |
| 1985 |
Solar Cells Professor Martin Green breaks the elusive 20% efficiency barrier for silicon solar cells |
| 1988 |
Polymer bank notes The CSIRO developed the world's first plastic-laminated bank notes, which provide enhanced security and longer life. |
| 1992 |
Multi-focal contact lens The world's first multi-focal contact lens was invented by optical research scientist, Stephen Newman in Queensland. |
| 1993 |
Snoring-prevention Res-Med developed a machine that pressurizes the airways, keeping the breathing passage open. |
| 1994 |
Photonics / fiber optics Simon Poole developed a technique that enabled engineers to overwrite a number of different fiber gratings with different refraction indeces on top of one another, in the same section of fiber. It also enabled the inclusion of WDM functions. His company, Indx, was acquired by JDS Uniphase, and would spearhead Uniphase's drive to bring the all-optical dream into networks around the globe. |
| 1994 |
Non-invasive TB test The world's first reliable non-invasive TB test that avoids possible adverse reactions was developed by scientists in Victoria. |
| 1999 |
Kinetic suspension system Reduces pitch and roll while keeping all four wheels on the ground as vehicle traverses rough terrain. Company acquired by Tenneco (Monroe springs & shock absorbers) |
| 1999 |
Relenza anti-flu drug approved for clinical use Based on groundbreaking work by Peter Colman, then head of CSIRO Bimolecular Engineering in Melbourne, and colleagues, Graeme Laver from the Australian National University and Mark von Itzstein then from Monash University. Using X-Ray crystallography, Laver and Colman studied in minute detail an enzyme on the surface of the flu virus that is essential in the flu virus’ life cycle. von Itzstein and his group using computer-based drug design identified a plug drug that would disable the enzyme, preventing the flu virus from taking hold in the body. Laver, Colman and von Itzstein shared the 1996 Australia Prize for their outstanding scientific work. |
| 2000 |
CSIRO's wireless local area network system (US Patent 5,487,069) is at the core of the IEEE802.11a standard for high-speed wireless local area networks. This patent describes how to overcome multipath effects that arise when transmitting wireless data at high speed in indoor environments. The patent, and technology to build a radio modem and medium access controller, was licensed to Sydney start up Radiata Communications Pty Limited, which was sold to Cisco Systems during 2000 for US$300 million. |
Australian Firsts
