Hills Hoist
A Hills Hoist is a height-adjustable rotary clothes line, manufactured in Adelaide, Australia by Lance Hill in 1945. The Hills hoist and similar rotary clothes hoists remain a common fixture in many backyards in Australia and New Zealand. It is considered one of Australia's most recognisable icons, and is used frequently by artists as a metaphor for Australian suburbia in the 1950s and '60s.[1]
Although originally a product name, the term "Hills Hoist" has become synonymous with rotary clothes hoists in general, throughout Australia. As early as 1895 Colin Stewart and Allan Harley of Sun Foundry in Adelaide applied for a patent for an ‘Improved Rotary and Tilting Clothes Drying Rack’. In their design the upper clothes line frame tilted to allow access to the hanging lines.[2] Gilbert Toyne of Geelong patented four rotary clothes hoists designs between 1911 and 1946. Toyne’s first patented clothes hoist was sold though the Aeroplane Clothes Hoist Company established in 1911.[3] It would be Toyne’s 1925 all-metal model (Australian Patent No. 24553/25) with its enclosed crown wheel-and-pinion winding mechanism that defined clothes hoist design for decades to follow. [4]
Lance Hill began to manufacture the Hills rotary clothes hoist in his backyard in 1945. His wife apparently wanted an inexpensive replacement to the line and prop she had for drying clothes.[5]
Lance Hill's brother-in-law Harold Ling returned from the war and joined him to form a partnership in 1946. Ling became the key figure in expanding the production and marketing of the Hills hoists. Initially the clothes hoists were constructed and sold from Lance Hill’s home on Bevington Road, Glenunga.[6] Soon production moved to a site on Glen Osmond Road and within a decade the factory had relocated to a larger site at Edwardstown, Adelaide.[7]
In 1947 Hills Hoists began manufacturing a wind-up clothes hoist which was identical to Gilbert Toyne’s expired 1925 patent with the crown wheel-and-pinion winding mechanism.[8] The company Hills Hoists became Hills Industries in 1958.
References
- ^ George Negus on ABC Transcript from 17/2/03
- ^ Rotary and Tilting Clothes Drying Rack National Archives of Australia: Accessed 3/6/2011
- ^ Aeroplane Clothes Hoist Company leaflet State Library of Victoria: Accessed 3/6/2011
- ^ Gilbert Toyne’s 1925 rotary clothes hoist patent IP Australia: Accessed 3/6/2011
- ^ [What a line! The story of the people who made the hoist an Australian icon: fifty years of Hills (1996) Harris, D.]
- ^ Hills Hoists early advertisment Trove, Digitised newspapers: Accessed 3/6/2011
- ^ [Hung Out to Dry: Gilbert Toyne’s classic Australia clothes hoist (2009) Cuffley, P & Middlemis, C]
- ^ [Hung Out to Dry (2009) Cuffley, P & Middlemis, C]
Hills Holdings Australia (Parent Company) Hills Sole Appointed Official Distributor for the UK & Europe: Greener Garden Solutions