Hills Hoist
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

A Hills Hoist is a height-adjustable rotary
clothes line A clothes line or washing line is any type of rope, cord, or twine that has been stretched between two points (e.g. two sticks), outside or indoors, above the level of the ground. Clothing that has recently been washed is hung along the line ...
, designed to permit the compact hanging of wet clothes so that their maximum area can be exposed for wind drying by rotation. For decades from 1945 the devices were mainly manufactured in
Adelaide Adelaide ( ) is the capital city of South Australia, the state's largest city and the fifth-most populous city in Australia. "Adelaide" may refer to either Greater Adelaide (including the Adelaide Hills) or the Adelaide city centre. The dem ...
,
South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...
using designs and patents purchased by Lance Hill. Director successors to his company now have them in most cases manufactured in China. The manufacturer soon became nationally market-dominant and rotary washing (clothes) lines have become common across much of the world. The local emphasis led to this product name becoming the generic term from a person's name (
eponym An eponym is a person, a place, or a thing after whom or which someone or something is, or is believed to be, named. The adjectives which are derived from the word eponym include ''eponymous'' and ''eponymic''. Usage of the word The term ''epon ...
) for most residents in
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
and many in
New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
. They are considered one of Australia's most recognisable
icons An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...
, and are used frequently by artists as a metaphor for Australian
suburbia A suburb (more broadly suburban area) is an area within a metropolitan area, which may include commercial and mixed-use, that is primarily a residential area. A suburb can exist either as part of a larger city/urban area or as a separate ...
in the 1950s and 1960s.George Negus on ABC
Transcript from 17 February 2003
The opening ceremony of the
2000 Sydney Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...
featured giant Hills Hoist robots roaming, for a segment. 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 uppermost part tilted to allow access to the hanging lines. Gilbert Toyne of
Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...
patented, manufactured and marketed four rotary clothes hoists designs between 1911 and 1946. Toyne's first patented clothes hoist was sold through the Aeroplane Clothes Hoist Company established in 1911 prior to the First World War. Having returned from
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
to a completely different situation, Toyne continued to perfect his designs despite his own troubles stemming from injuries suffered from the war and in 1925 patented and the next year begun selling an all-metal rotary clothes hoist with its enclosed crown wheel-and-pinion winding mechanism that defined clothes hoist designs for decades to follow. Prolific South Australian inventor Gerhard ‘Pop’ Kaesler also designed one, giving his wife Mary the privilege of using a modern rotary clothesline, two decades before they went into commercial production in Adelaide. Lance Hill bought the metre-high wooden prototype model and plans from Pop. 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, as she had no room on the line due to her growing lemon tree. 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 Hill's hoists and seem to have dropped any idea of a
possessive apostrophe The apostrophe ( or ) is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritical mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet and some other alphabets. In English, the apostrophe is used for two basic purposes: * The marking of the omission of one o ...
from the outset. In 1947 Hills Hoists began manufacturing a windable clothes hoist which was identical to Toyne's expired 1925 patent with the crown wheel-and-pinion winding mechanism.Cuffley, P. & Middlemis, C. (2009) Hung Out to Dry: Gilbert Toyne's classic Australia clothes hoistThe Hills Story
Pandora.com, Accessed 18/1/07
Initially the clothes hoists were constructed and sold from Lance Hill's home on Bevington Road, Glenunga. Soon production moved to a nearby site on
Glen Osmond Road Glen Osmond Road is a major section of the Princes Highway (and Highway 1) in the city of Adelaide, South Australia. Connecting the Adelaide city centre with the Adelaide Hills via the South Eastern Freeway; Glen Osmond Road carries half of Adel ...
and within a decade the factory had relocated to a larger site at
Edwardstown Edwardstown is an inner southern-western suburb located 6 km southwest of Adelaide in the City of Marion. In 1989 the suburb of Edwardstown was split, with the portion east of South Road becoming Melrose Park. This occurred as the suburb ...
. The company Hills Hoists became
Hills Industries Hills Limited (Hills) is a publicly listed industrial conglomerate company (ASX:HIL) with branches across Australia and New Zealand. Hills is the evolution of Hills Hoist Ltd, the company founded by Lance Hill and Harold Ling in 1948 to manufactu ...
in 1958. In 1974, a Darwin family reported that the only thing left standing after
Cyclone Tracy Cyclone Tracy was a tropical cyclone that devastated the city of Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, from 24 to 26 December 1974. The small, developing easterly storm had been observed passing clear of the city initially, but then turned t ...
was their Hills Hoist. The Hills Hoist is listed as a National Treasure by the
National Library of Australia The National Library of Australia (NLA), formerly the Commonwealth National Library and Commonwealth Parliament Library, is the largest reference library in Australia, responsible under the terms of the ''National Library Act 1960'' for "mainta ...
. In January 2017, Hills Industries sold the manufacturing and sale rights of its Hills Home Living brands to
AMES Australasia Ames True Temper is a multinational corporation headquartered in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, USA. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Griffon Corporation. Ames True Temper specializes in the manufacture of non-powered lawn and garden products. The ...
, a subsidiary of the American
Griffon Corporation Griffon Corporation is a multinational conglomerate headquartered in New York City. The company conducts its operations through five subsidiaries: The AMES Companies, ClosetMaid, Clopay Building Products, CornellCookson, and Telephonics Cor ...
. As of 2018 Austral ClothesHoists and Daytek Australia are the only Australian manufacturers of rotary clotheslines.


See also

*
Hammersmith Hills Hoists The Hammersmith Hills Hoists are an amateur rugby league club based in Hammersmith, London founded at the end of 2008 by local Australian expats to provide players of all nationalities, backgrounds and abilities the chance to play competitive ...
Rugby League Football Club *
Goon of Fortune Goon of Fortune is an Australian and New Zealand drinking game involving cheap cask wine (colloquially known as "goon"), played between any number of people. The name is a spoof on the TV show ''Wheel of Fortune''. A number of goonsacks are pegg ...
– a drinking game involving a rotary line * Gilbert Toyne – inventor and owner of four relevant patents (expired)


References


Footnotes


External links

{{commons category, Hills hoists
Hills Holdings Australia
Parent Company
Greener Garden Solutions
Hills sole appointed official distributor for the UK & Europe
Lifestyle Clotheslines
Hills appointed official online distributor for Australia Australian companies established in 1945 Products introduced in 1945 Australian inventions Laundry drying equipment Manufacturing companies based in Adelaide el:Απλώστρα ρούχων sv:Torkvinda