HALLSTROM, Sir EDWARD JOHN LEES (1886-1970), manufacturer, zoological park administrator and philanthropist, was born on 25 September 1886 at High Park station, near Coonamble, New South Wales, eighth of nine children of William Hallstrom, a saddler from England who was of Swedish extraction, and his native-born wife Mary Ann, née Colless, a descendant of John Lees of the New South Wales Corps. Edward was about 4 when his father's farming endeavour failed and the family moved to Sydney. They lived at Waterloo near young (Sir) William McKell, with whom Edward (although never a Labor supporter) formed a lifelong friendship. The Hallstrom parents separated and conditions were hard for the children. At the age of 10 Edward was doing odd jobs to supplement the family income. He left school at 13, to be apprenticed to a cabinet-maker, but continued to study the Harmsworth Self-Educator, encyclopaedias and scientific magazines. Intelligent and hard working, he soon had charge of a furniture factory. Several years later he established his own business, manufacturing bedsteads. Fascinated with flying, he was friendly with the pioneer aviators Bert Hinkler and George Taylor; he built box kites for Taylor and was with him on his inaugural flight at Narrabeen Beach in December 1909.
On a trip to Maryborough, Queensland, Hallstrom met Margaret Elliott Jaffrey, a talented artist who shared his love of animals. They were married with Presbyterian forms on 6 April 1912 at her parents' home at New Farm, Brisbane. Edward was a strict disciplinarian, but his wife and four children idolized him. After reading an early article on refrigeration, he studied every patent in that field taken out since Federation and experimented in a makeshift laboratory in his backyard at Dee Why. He quickly saw the possibilities of kerosene-powered refrigeration for outback stations which relied on the primitive 'Coolgardie safe'. In 1923 he produced his first unit, the Icy Ball absorption refrigerator, a chest model run by kerosene, which he sold in the outback himself. He then diversified into the Silent Knight upright models, run on gas or electricity. To his family's relief, he moved production from the backyard to a rambling site at Willoughby. During World War II the factory produced munitions, as well as refrigerators for the American Army for medical purposes. By the mid-1940s Hallstroms Pty Ltd was turning out 1200 refrigerators per week and employed over seven hundred people, among them members of his family. He subsequently invented a machine for refrigerating anaesthetics which he presented to Sydney Hospital.
His entrepreneurial and inventive abilities enabled Hallstrom to manufacture an efficient, reasonably priced product at a time when imported refrigerators were costly. For all his softly spoken, affable manner, he was known as 'the Chief', someone whose word was law. Yet, he was a kind man, renowned for close relationships with his employees to whom his personal generosity was legendary. Silent Knight became a household name in Australia, supplying both domestic and export markets, and Hallstrom became a millionaire. The family moved into a harbourside home at Northbridge, although he spent much of the week in a Spartan flat at his factory.
By this time Hallstrom could afford to indulge two passions—a love of birds and animals (a childhood obsession) and philanthropy. With the proceeds of the sale of five hundred kerosene refrigerators in Africa in 1937, he bought two rhinoceroses which he presented to the Taronga Zoological Park Trust. These were the first of many gifts which gave him extraordinary influence. In 1941 he was appointed a trustee of the zoo which he was to dominate for the next twenty-six years. He was vice-chairman (1945-51) and president from 1951 until 1959, when his son succeeded him. As honorary director (1959-67) Hallstrom was still effectively in control.