Thomas Sutcliffe Mort (23 December 18169 May 1878) was an Australian
industrialist
A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through perso ...
who improved the
refrigeration
The term refrigeration refers to the process of removing heat from an enclosed space or substance for the purpose of lowering the temperature.International Dictionary of Refrigeration, http://dictionary.iifiir.org/search.phpASHRAE Terminology, ht ...
of meat. He was renowned for speculation in the local
pastoral
A pastoral lifestyle is that of shepherds herding livestock around open areas of land according to seasons and the changing availability of water and pasture. It lends its name to a genre of literature, art, and music (pastorale) that depicts ...
industry as well as industrial activities such as his Ice-Works in Sydney's
Darling Harbour
Darling Harbour is a harbour adjacent to the city centre of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia that is made up of a large recreational and pedestrian precinct that is situated on western outskirts of the Sydney central business district.
Origin ...
and dry dock and engineering works at
Balmain.
Businessman
Mort was born in
Bolton
Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish people, Flemish weavers settled in the area i ...
, Lancashire, England in 1816. In 1878, he was associated with the
Australian Mutual Provident Society
AMP is a financial services company in Australia and New Zealand providing superannuation and investment products, financial advice, and banking products (through AMP Banking) including home loans and savings accounts. Its headquarters is in Syd ...
. In 1849, he was one of a committee, which funded a company to promote sugar growing at Moreton Bay. In 1850 Mort was a member of the Sydney Exchange Co, and in 1851 he was a director of the Sydney Railway Co. and was also involved in mining (gold, later also copper and coal) and other enterprises. In the 1850s, he opened
Mort's Dock
Mort's Dock is a former dry dock, slipway, and shipyard in Balmain, New South Wales, Australia. It was the first dry dock in Australia, opening for business in 1855 and closing more than a century later in 1959. The site is now parkland.
His ...
in Sydney, a business that was not as successful as he wished.
[ In 1843, he established Mort & Company, in Sydney, and held the first wool auction there,] which was the beginning the wool auction system.
Mort returned to England for a visit in 1857–59. During that visit he bought many furnishings, pictures and other goods, in particular at a sale of the possessions of the Earl of Shrewsbury
Earl of Shrewsbury () is a hereditary title of nobility created twice in the Peerage of England. The second earldom dates to 1442. The holder of the Earldom of Shrewsbury also holds the title of Earl of Waterford (1446) in the Peerage of Ireland ...
. He commissioned the architect Edmund Blacket
Edmund Thomas Blacket (25 August 1817 – 9 February 1883) was an Australian architect, best known for his designs for the University of Sydney, St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney and St. Saviour's Cathedral, Goulburn.
Arriving in Sydney from Engl ...
to build a house to add to his house to display the new possessions. His gallery was open to the public.
From 1856, Mort began acquiring land near Moruya
Moruya is a town located on the far south coast of New South Wales, Australia, situated on the Moruya River. The Princes Highway runs through the town that is about south of Sydney and from Canberra. At the , Moruya had a population of 4 ...
on the south coast of New South Wales. In 1860, Mort acquired the Bodalla estate near the mouth of the Tuross River
The Tuross River, an open semi-mature wave dominated barrier estuary or perennial stream, is located in the South Coast region of New South Wales, Australia.
Course and features
Tuross River rises of the eastern slopes of the Kybeyan Range, p ...
. Mort eventually owned in the district, a very substantial holding in that fertile area. Bodalla is alleged to have been originally known as 'Boat Alley'. Mort's vision for Bodalla was as a country estate to retire on and to demonstrate model land utilisation and rural settlement. Mort wished to have a tenanted dairy estate run as an integrated whole.[
Mort replaced the beef cattle that had been farmed there and carried out extensive improvements including clearing land, draining river swamps, erecting fences, laying out farms, sowing imported grasses, and providing milking sheds, cheese and butter-making equipment. Butter and cheese were produced for the Sydney market. By the 1870s, the tenants were disgruntled sharefarmers and the estate was in Mort's control again run as three farms with hired labour.
In 1866, Mort expanded his dry dock into an engineering works. Mort offered shares to his employees and in 1875, the company was incorporated with limited liability having been managed beforehand by a committee that included four leading hands. This was one of the earliest attempts at co-operation between capital and labour in Australia, and although the effort at sharing ownership was only partially successful, Mort always had good relations with his employees.
Also in the mid-1860s, Mort had been looking at refrigeration as a way of developing manufacturing orders, to ensure better access to the Sydney market for the butter and cheese he was producing at Bodalla and to offset the vulnerability of being exposed to falling wool prices. Mort financed experiments by Eugene Dominic Nicolle, a French born engineer who had arrived in Sydney in 1853 and registered his first ice-making patent in 1861.
In 1861 Mort established at ]Darling Harbour
Darling Harbour is a harbour adjacent to the city centre of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia that is made up of a large recreational and pedestrian precinct that is situated on western outskirts of the Sydney central business district.
Origin ...
the first freezing works in the world, which afterwards became the New South Wales Fresh Food and Ice Company. The first trial shipment of frozen meat to London was in 1868. Although their machinery was never used in the frozen meat trade, Mort and Nicolle developed commercially viable systems for domestic trade, although the financial return on that investment was not a great success for Mort.
As a part of his refrigeration works, Mort developed a large abattoir
A slaughterhouse, also called abattoir (), is a facility where animals are slaughtered to provide food. Slaughterhouses supply meat, which then becomes the responsibility of a packaging facility.
Slaughterhouses that produce meat that is no ...
at Lithgow where sheep and cattle from western New South Wales were slaughtered and refrigerated for later transport.
Mort was a director of the Western Kerosene Oil Company, when in July 1871, he bought the assets of the rival Hartley Kerosene Oil and Paraffine Company, at auction. His purchase facilitated the merger of the two companies existing operations, at Hartley Vale and Waterloo, to form the New South Wales Shale and Oil Company, in 1872. That company, which mined and processed oil shale
Oil shale is an organic-rich fine-grained sedimentary rock containing kerogen (a solid mixture of organic chemical compounds) from which liquid hydrocarbons can be produced. In addition to kerogen, general composition of oil shales constitute ...
at Hartley Vale, and later also at Torbane, continued in business until it was taken over by Commonwealth Oil Corporation Commonwealth Oil Corporation Limited was an English-owned Australian company associated with the production and refining of petroleum products derived from oil shale, during the early years of the 20th century. It is associated with Newnes, Hartley ...
in 1906.
Mort was a prominent Anglican
Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...
layman. He donated the land for St Mark's Church, Darling Point
Darling Point is a harbourside eastern suburb of Sydney, Australia. It is 4 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of Woollahra Council.
Darling Point is bounded by Sydney Harbour to ...
, and commissioned Edmund Blacket
Edmund Thomas Blacket (25 August 1817 – 9 February 1883) was an Australian architect, best known for his designs for the University of Sydney, St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney and St. Saviour's Cathedral, Goulburn.
Arriving in Sydney from Engl ...
to design the church. Mort contributed to the upkeep of the church and also to the building of St. Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney
St Andrew's Cathedral (also known as St Andrew's Anglican Cathedral) is a cathedral church of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney in the Anglican Church of Australia. The cathedral is the seat of the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney and Metropolitan ...
and St Paul's College, University of Sydney
St Paul's College (commonly known as Paul's) is an Anglican residential college within the University of Sydney in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1856, it is Australia's oldest university college. Its alumni, referred to as "Old Paulines", includ ...
. He was also the founder of Christ Church School in Pitt Street, Sydney.
Death and legacy
Thomas Mort died of pneumonia at Bodalla on 9 May 1878.
Sir Thomas Sutcliffe Mort, using the technology developed by another new Australian, French immigrant Eugene Nicolle (who dissolved ammonia
Ammonia is an inorganic compound of nitrogen and hydrogen with the formula . A stable binary hydride, and the simplest pnictogen hydride, ammonia is a colourless gas with a distinct pungent smell. Biologically, it is a common nitrogenous was ...
in water
Water (chemical formula ) is an inorganic, transparent, tasteless, odorless, and nearly colorless chemical substance, which is the main constituent of Earth's hydrosphere and the fluids of all known living organisms (in which it acts as a ...
to reach a temperature of -20 °C in a sealed room) in Balmain built the first freezerworks. Subsequently, with the help of NSW
)
, nickname =
, image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg
, map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates:
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name = Australia
, established_title = Before federation
, es ...
politician, Augustus Morris
Augustus Morris ( – 29 August 1895) was a pastoralist and politician in New South Wales, Australia.
He was born in Van Diemen's Land around 1820 to ex-convict and farmer Augustus Morris and Constantia Hibbins. He was educated at Hobart an ...
, they overcame the public's mistrust of frozen food by revealing to an audience of the influential (after their state meal) that the food was not "fresh". This was consequently reported in the Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper i ...
and helped to trigger demand for frozen meats and other primary produce, first to the rural population thence to Britain and, eventually, the world.
At the time of his death he was spoken of as "the greatest benefactor the working classes in this country ever had". Within a week, a meeting of working men in Sydney had resolved to show their esteem; a sculpture in Macquarie Place by Pierce Connolly was unveiled in 1883.
Mort is also commemorated by All Saints Church, Bodalla, built in his honour by his family, to a design by Blacket, using granite quarried on Mort's property. The foundation stone was laid in 1880. It was completed in 1901. The church has one of seven small Henry Willis & Sons
Henry Willis & Sons is a British firm of pipe organ builders founded in 1845. Although most of their installations have been in the UK, examples can be found in other countries.
Five generations of the Willis family served as principals of th ...
organs. The church cost A£
The pound (Sign: £, £A for distinction) was the currency of Australia from 1910 until 14 February 1966, when it was replaced by the Australian dollar. As with other £sd currencies, it was subdivided into 20 shillings (denoted by the symbol s ...
13,000.
Mort's business ''Mort & Co.'' became ''Mort & Co Ltd'' in 1883. It merged with R Goldsbrough & Co Ltd in 1888 to form '' Goldsbrough Mort & Co Ltd.'' In 1963 a merger formed ''Elder Smith Goldsbrough Mort Ltd'' which traded until 1982. The present day business is ''Elders Limited
Elders Limited, formerly known as Elder, Stirling & Co., Elder Smith and Co. and Elder Smith & Co. Ltd, is an Australian agribusiness that provides agricultural goods and services to primary producers in Australia.
History
Early history (183 ...
''.
The southern Sydney suburb of Mortdale
Mortdale is a suburb located in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Mortdale is located 20 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district and is part of the St George area. Mortdale is situated in the ...
and its main road, Morts Road, are named after him.[Mortdale Early Days]
His house in Darling Point which he called Greenoaks became the home of the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney
The Archbishop of Sydney is the diocesan bishop of the Anglican Diocese of Sydney, Australia and ''ex officio'' metropolitan bishop of the ecclesiastical Province of New South Wales.
From 1814 to 1836 the colony of New South Wales was part of ...
on 24 October 1910 and was renamed Bishopscourt. It was listed on the New South Wales State Heritage Register
The New South Wales State Heritage Register, also known as NSW State Heritage Register, is a heritage list of places in the state of New South Wales, Australia, that are protected by New South Wales legislation, generally covered by the Heritag ...
in 1999.
See also
* James Harrison
* Richard Goldsbrough
Richard Goldsbrough (17 October 1821 – 8 April 1886) was an English-born Australian businessman who was involved in the wool industry in the 19th century.
Goldsbrough took little part in public life, although he was a steward of the Victoria Rac ...
Notes
References
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mort, Thomas Sutcliffe
1816 births
1878 deaths
Australian people of English descent
People from Bolton
Ice trade
Deaths from pneumonia in New South Wales
People from the South Coast (New South Wales)
Australian philanthropists
19th-century Australian businesspeople
19th-century philanthropists