This is a timeline of Australian inventions consisting of products and technology invented in Australia from pre-European-settlement in 1788 to the present. The inventions are listed in chronological order based on the date of their introduction.
Australian inventions include the very old, such as woomera, and the very new, such as the scramjet, first fired at the Woomera rocket range. The Australian government has suggested that Australian inventiveness springs from the nation's geography and isolation. Perhaps due to its status as an island continent connected to the rest of the world only via air and sea, Australians have been leaders in inventions relating to both maritime and aeronautical matters, including powered flight, the black box flight recorder, the inflatable escape slide, the surf ski and the wave-piercing catamaran winged keel. Since the earliest days of European settlement, Australia's main industries have been agriculture and mining. As a result of this, Australians have made many inventions in these areas, including the grain stripper, the stump jump plough, mechanical sheep shears, the Dethridge water wheel, the froth flotation ore separation process, the instream ore analysis process and the buffalo fly trap.
Australian inventions also include a number of weapons or weapons systems, including the woomera, the tank, and the underwater torpedo. In recent years, Australians have been at the forefront of medical technology with inventions including ultrasound, the bionic ear, the first plastic spectacle lenses, the electronic pacemaker, the multi-focal contact lens, spray-on artificial skin and anti-flu medication. Australians also developed a number of useful household items, including Vegemite, and the process for producing permanently creased fabric.
Many of Australia's inventions were realised by individuals who get little credit or who are often overlooked for more famous Europeans.
Australian-Aboriginal man David Unaipon is known as "Australia's Leonardo" for his contributions to science and the Aboriginal people. His inventions include a tool for sheep-shearing, a centrifugal motor, a multi-radial wheel and mechanical propulsion device. Unaipon appears on Australia's $50 note.
The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian-government-funded institution. A number of CSIRO funded scientists and engineers are featured in this list. CSIRO scientists lead Australian research across a number of different fields, and work with industry and government to solve problems such as using insects to tackle weeds, growing more sustainable crops and improving transportation.
Aboriginal technology – before 1788
Didgeridoo – The didgeridoo is a wind instrument of northern Australia. It is sometimes described as a "drone pipe," but musicologists classify it as an aerophone. Traditionally, a didgeridoo was made by selecting a section of a Eucalyptus branch, then burying it near a termite mound so that the termites would hollow it out, to produce a long, hollow piece of wood suitable for fashioning the instrument.
Woomera – The woomera is a type of spear thrower, adding thrust to a spear as part of a throwing action.
Colonial era – 19th century
1843 – Grain stripper – John Wrathall Bull invented and John Ridley manufactured in South Australia the world's first mechanised grain stripper. It utilised a comb to lift the ears of the crop to where revolving beaters deposited the grain into a bin.
1856 – Refrigerator – Using the principle of vapour compression, James Harrison produced the world's first practical ice making machine and refrigerator.
1856 – Secret Ballot voting invented by Henry Chapman and first used in the Victorian election on 23 September 1856. Voters had their names marked off on the electoral roll at the polling place, were presented with a printed ballot paper, and retired to separate compartments to mark their ballot paper in secrecy before depositing it in a locked box watched over by the presiding officer, poll clerks and scrutineers.
1858 – Australian rules football – began its development when Tom Wills wrote a letter published in Bell's Life in Victoria & Sporting Chronicle on 10 July 1858, calling for a "foot-ball club, a rifle club, or other athletic pursuits" to keep cricketers fit during winter. An experimental match was played by Wills and others at the Richmond Paddock, later known as Yarra Park next to the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 31 July 1858. The Melbourne Football Club rules of 1859 are the oldest surviving set of laws for Australian football. They were drawn up at the Parade Hotel, East Melbourne, on 17 May, by Wills, W. J. Hammersley, J. B. Thompson and Thomas Smith.Thomas Smith himself made this claim in response to an article about the history of Melbourne FC in The Australasian published 26 February 1876 (from Melbourne FC Since 1858 – An Illustrated History pg 36). Smith's personal account mentions Thompson arriving after the decision to form the club The Melbourne club's game was not immediately adopted by neighbouring clubs. Before each match the rules had to be agreed by the two teams involved. By 1866, several other clubs had agreed to play by an updated version of Melbourne's rules.
1859 – Photolithography – developed by John Walter Osborne at the Victorian government's Crown Lands Office. During a land boom the Office had trouble producing the many maps and documents required to keep land records updated. Instead of having to copy surveyor's originals, or having to store stone originals, master copies saved were glass slides of around square.Jean Gittins, 'Osborne, John Walter (1828–1902)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/osborne-john-walter-4343/text7051, published first in hardcopy 1974, accessed online 26 June 2016.
1868 – Granny Smith Apple – Propagated by Maria Ann Smith in Eastwood, New South Wales
1874 – Underwater torpedo – Invented by Louis Brennan, the torpedo had two propellers, rotated by wires which were attached to winding engines on the shore station. By varying the speed at which the two wires were extracted, the torpedo could be steered to the left or right by an operator on the shore.
1876 – Stump jump plough – Richard and Clarence Bowyer Smith developed a plough whose individual shares could jump over stumps and stones, enabling newly cleared land to be cultivated.
1877 – Mechanical clippers – Various mechanical shearing patents were registered in Australia before Frederick York Wolseley finally succeeded in developing a practical hand piece with a comb and reciprocating cutter driven by power transmitted from a stationary engine.
1880s - Early Television (Telephane) - Ballarat resident Henry Sutton (inventor) developed a device dubbed the ‘telephane’, a long, tube-shaped appliance designed to transmit images over telegraph and telephone wires. The Government Astronomer of Victoria confirmed that he witnessed the telephane, and it worked well. Sutton’s paper on the telephane was published widely in 1887, but Sutton did not patent the device.
1889 – Electric drill – Arthur James Arnot patented the world's first electric drill on 20 August 1889 while working for the Union Electric Company in Melbourne. He designed it primarily to drill rock and to dig coal."Specifications for registration of patent by William Blanch Brain and Arthur James Arnot titled – Improvements in electrical rock drills coal diggers and earth cutters". National Archives of Australia (1889). Retrieved on 31 March 2008
1892 – Coolgardie safe – Arthur Patrick McCormick noticed that a wet bag placed over a bottle cooled its contents, and the cooling was more pronounced in a breeze. The Coolgardie safe was a box made of wire and hessian sitting in water, which was placed on a verandah so that any breeze would evaporate the water in the hessian and via the principle of evaporation, cool the air inside the box. The Coolgardie safe was used into the middle of the 20th century as a means of preserving food. Worth its weight: a celebration of Coolgardie's centenary, 1892–1992, Perth, LISWA, 1992
1893 – Box kite – Invented by Lawrence Hargrave, the box kite is a high performance kite, noted for developing relatively high lift; it was used as part of his attempt to develop a manned flying machine. Having added a seat to four connected box kites, he flew with the kites 16 feet (4.8 metres) off the ground, proving to the world that it was possible to build a safe, heavier-than-air flying machine. Hargrave’s designs were quickly taken up by other inventors, including the American Octave Chanute with whom he was corresponding, and whose designs were later incorporated by the Wright brothers into their Wright Flyer, the first aircraft to achieve powered flight with a pilot on board in December 1903.
20th century Post-Federation – 1901–1945
1902 – Notepad – For 500 years, paper had been supplied in loose sheets. Launceston stationer J. A. Birchall decided that it would be a good idea to cut the sheets in half, back them with cardboard and glue them together at the top.
1903 – Froth flotation – The process of separating minerals from rock by flotation was developed by Charles Potter and Guillaume Delprat in New South Wales. Both worked independently at the same time on different parts of the process for the mining company BHP
1906 – Feature film – The world's first feature-length film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, was a little over one hour long.National Film and Sound Archive (7 February 2006). "World's first 'feature' film to be digitally restored by National Film and Sound Archive". Press release. Retrieved on 25 March 2008
1906 – Surf life-saving reel – The first surf life-saving reel in the world was demonstrated at Bondi Beach on 23 December 1906 by its designer, surfer Lester Ormsby.
1907 – Michell thrust block bearing – Fluid-film thrust bearings were invented by Australian engineer George Michell. Michell bearings contain a number of sector-shaped pads, arranged in a circle around the shaft, and that are free to tilt. These create wedge-shaped regions of oil inside the bearing between the pads and a rotating disk, which support the applied thrust and eliminate metal-on-metal contact. The small size (one-tenth the size of old bearing designs), low friction and long life of Michell's invention made possible the development of larger propellers and engines in ships. They were used extensively in ships built during World War I, and have become the standard bearing used on turbine shafts in ships and power plants worldwide.
1910 – Humespun pipe-making process – The Humespun process was developed by Walter Hume of Humes Ltd for making concrete pipes of high strength and low permeability. The process used centrifugal force to evenly distribute concrete onto wire reinforcing, revolutionising pipe manufacture.
1910 – Dethridge wheel – The wheel, used to measure the water flow in an irrigation channel, consisting of a drum on an axle, with eight v-shaped vanes fixed to its outside, was invented by John Dethridge, Commissioner of the Victorian State Rivers and Water Supply Commission.
1912 – Surf ski – Harry McLaren and his brother Jack used an early version of the surf ski for use around the family's oyster beds on Lake Innes, near Port Macquarie, and the brothers used them in the surf on Port Macquarie's beaches. The board was propelled in a sitting position with two small hand blades, which was probably not a highly efficient method to negotiate the surf. The deck is flat with a bung plug at the rear and a nose ring with a leash, possibly originally required for mooring. The rails are square and there is pronounced rocker. The boards' obvious buoyancy indicates hollow construction, with thin boards of cedar fixed longitudinally down the board.