Bill Gallagher

Alfred William Gallagher (17 May 1911 – 8 August 1990) was a New Zealand inventor, manufacturing engineer and businessman. He is notable for popularising the electric fence. Early life Alfred William Gallagher, later known as Bill Gallagher, was born in Hamilton, in the Waikato province of New Zealand, on 17 May 1911, to Alfred John Gallagher, a dairy farmer, and his wife, Sarah Matilda . The eldest of six children, he was initially educated at Te Kowhai School. In 1920, the family moved from their dairy farm at Horotiu to a larger property at Papamoa, in the Bay of Plenty. He started working fulltime on the farm in 1926, once he had completed his formal schooling. Within a few years, he, together with his brother Henry, took over responsibility for the farm after their parent's marriage broke down and his father moved to Australia. By 1936, Gallagher was married; he had met his wife, Millicent May , through involvement with a church at Te Puke. The couple would have five children. He was now farming at Horsham Downs, back in the Waikato near where he spent his childhood; the farm at Papamoa had been sold and his share of the proceeds went towards the purchase of the Horsham Downs farm. Development of the electric fence Gallagher was technically creative from an early age, devising various gadgets to assist in their farming work. In the 1930s, he discovered that electricity could be useful in confining animals when he made a triggering mechanism that made a car electrically active when a horse rubbed against it. By 1937, he had developed an electric fence for farmers, selling battery powered units and being granted a patent. In 1940, he had moved his family to Hamilton East where he continued to manufacture his electric fence. Shortly afterwards, he, his other brother Vivian, and a friend began working in Wellington, making electric fences and gas producers for use with vehicles. During this time, he invented a filter for a gas producer. He remained in Wellington for two years before he returned to Hamilton. As the Second World War was well underway, he was co-opted to work for the Colonial Ammunition Company, which had been relocated from Auckland to a site in Hamilton East. Later, as part of the war effort, he repaired farming machinery.