Sir Edward John Lees Hallstrom (25 September 1886 – 27 February 1970) was one of Australia's best-known philanthropists and businessmen of the mid 20th century. Hallstrom is best known for his long association with the Taronga Zoo and for his "Silent Knight" brand of refrigerators.
Early life and family background
Born at High Park station, near Coonamble, New South Wales, Hallstrom was the eighth of a family of nine children born to William Hallstrom, a saddler from England of Swedish extraction, and his Australian wife Mary Ann (née Colless).
The accepted biographical narrative is that, at the age of four, his father's farm failed and the family moved to Waterloo, an inner-city suburb of Sydney. The actual events before the move were complicated. In 1888, Hallstrom's father had sued a neighbour concerning damage caused by a dam on the neighbour's property. Not long before he won £500 in damages, a suspicious fire destroyed a shed on his property, containing uninsured grains and goods, said to be worth over £300. In February 1890, his father was arrested, after another fire that caused damage to insured property worth £500—another man's shed containing property belonging to William Hallstrom—was found to be willfully caused. Charged with arson, he was acquitted at trial, in March 1890, after one of the witnesses against him had admitted to perjury. Soon after his acquittal for arson, William Hallstrom was arrested and committed for trial, on a charge of subornation of perjury. The charges were probably dropped, as there seems to have been no trial. By early April 1890, William Hallstrom was selling off his farm horses.
Not long afterwards, the family moved to Sydney, settling at Waterloo. There, Hallstrom formed a friendship with the young William McKell, whose early life and family circumstances have some striking similarities to Hallstrom's own. McKell became first a boilermaker and was involved in the Labour Movement, later studied law and became a barrister, entered politics and was later a Premier of New South Wales, and eventually became Governor-General of Australia. Although Hallstrom himself would never be a supporter of the Australian Labor Party, their friendship was lifelong.
Hallstrom's parents separated—actually his father, William Hallstrom, seems to have deserted the family—and, by the age of 10, Hallstrom was working, performing a variety of jobs to help supplement the family's income, as were his siblings. Hallstrom never spoke of his father, but did have memories of difficult times and the struggle to keep the farm.
Largely self-taught and having left school at thirteen, Hallstrom applied himself well to both his studies and his work. Hallstrom is said to have taught himself by reading books, including the English publication, Harmsworth Self-Educator, a copy of which he kept until his death. Hallstrom was apprenticed, as a cabinet maker and eventually took charge of a furniture factory. Hallstrom later founded a business of his own, manufacturing bedsteads.
He was of a Methodist background. John and Mary Lees, pioneers of the Methodist denomination in Australia, were ancestors on his mother's side. Hallstrom was a lifelong teetotaller, and neither smoked nor gambled.
Early flying
Hallstrom was a member of the Australian Aerial League, led by George Augustine Taylor. Beginning on 5 December 1909, at the sand hills near the entrance to Narrabeen Lakes, he took turns—along with Taylor, Taylor's wife Florence Mary Taylor, and two others—to make short non-powered flights, in a glider that Taylor had built, based upon the box-kite designs of Taylor's close friend, Lawrence Hargraves. It was intended that the glider would be fitted with an engine to become the first Australian-made aeroplane, but the engine was not delivered, and that honour went instead to John Duigan.
The flights on 5 December 1909 are regarded as the first flights of a heavier-than-air aircraft in Australia, and are commemorated by three replicas of Taylor's glider, one of which is in the collection of the National Museum of Australia.
Family
Hallstrom met his first wife, Margaret Elliott Jaffrey, on a trip to Queensland. She was a talented artist, and shared his enthusiasm for birds and animals. They were married at her parents' home in the Brisbane suburb of New Farm, on 6 April 1912. After their reception, the newly weds left for Sydney on RMS Osterley. The couple had one son and three daughters.
Bedstead manufacturer
Hallstrom's business, in Abattoir Road, Pyrmont, set up by late 1920 and possibly as early as late 1918, flourished initially. Hallstrom claimed to have made the first innerspring mattresses in Australia.