Hills Hoist rotary clothesline
Tendedero rotatorio Hills Hoist
- Date
- 1945 · confidence medium
- Place
- Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
- Credited to
- Lance Hill (building on earlier designs by Gilbert Toyne and Gerhard Kaesler)
- Field
- Tools
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A rotary clothesline of strung wires around a central pole that can be raised and lowered with a winch and spins in the wind. An icon of Australian suburban backyards.
There are precedents: Gilbert Toyne (Geelong) patented rotary clothes-hoist designs from 1911 and Gerhard Kaesler (South Australia) made a prototype; Hill bought Kaesler's designs and began manufacturing in 1945. The 1947 winding mechanism reproduced an expired Toyne patent (1925).
What it led to
- 20th-century rotary clotheslines in Oceanian yards
- outdoor drying as an alternative to the dryer
- a cultural symbol of the Australian suburb