Thomas Sutcliffe Mort (1816-1878) was a merchant, shipbuilder, wool broker and pioneer of the technique of freezing meat for export. Mort arrrived in New South Wales from England in 1838, and by 1843 had extablished the colony's main wool auction house, Mort Company. He soon took on export consignments, stock and station agencies, railway promotion, mining and sugar cultivation. Successful pastoral investments in the 1850s financed his development of a large model dairy farm at Bodalla, NSW, where he also tried to grow cotton and silk. While rebuilding a Darling Point mansion, he established a dry dock at Balmain in the mid 1850s, where he progressed from shipbuilding to locomotive production and general engineering. This business became Goldsbrough, Mort & Co. in 1888, some 10 years after Mort's death. In 1875 Mort established the New South Wales Fresh Food and Ice Company, which capitalised on refrigeration experiments he had funded between 1866 and 1878. The first consignments of frozen meat were shipped from Australia in 1870, the year after Mort died. The Morts were married in Sydney in 1841 and travelled to England in 1857.
