<P> The history of artificial refrigeration began when Scottish professor William Cullen designed a small refrigerating machine in 1755 . Cullen used a pump to create a partial vacuum over a container of diethyl ether, which then boiled, absorbing heat from the surrounding air . The experiment even created a small amount of ice, but had no practical application at that time . </P> <P> In 1805, American inventor Oliver Evans described a closed vapor - compression refrigeration cycle for the production of ice by ether under vacuum . In 1820, the British scientist Michael Faraday liquefied ammonia and other gases by using high pressures and low temperatures, and in 1834, an American expatriate in Great Britain, Jacob Perkins, built the first working vapor - compression refrigeration system . It was a closed - cycle device that could operate continuously . A similar attempt was made in 1842, by American physician, John Gorrie, who built a working prototype, but it was a commercial failure . American engineer Alexander Twining took out a British patent in 1850 for a vapor compression system that used ether . </P> <P> The first practical vapor compression refrigeration system was built by James Harrison, a British journalist who had emigrated to Australia . His 1856 patent was for a vapor compression system using ether, alcohol or ammonia . He built a mechanical ice - making machine in 1851 on the banks of the Barwon River at Rocky Point in Geelong, Victoria, and his first commercial ice - making machine followed in 1854 . Harrison also introduced commercial vapor - compression refrigeration to breweries and meat packing houses, and by 1861, a dozen of his systems were in operation . </P> <P> The first gas absorption refrigeration system using gaseous ammonia dissolved in water (referred to as "aqua ammonia") was developed by Ferdinand Carré of France in 1859 and patented in 1860 . Carl von Linde, an engineering professor at the Technological University Munich in Germany, patented an improved method of liquefying gases in 1876 . His new process made possible the use of gases such as ammonia (NH), sulfur dioxide (SO) and methyl chloride (CH Cl) as refrigerants and they were widely used for that purpose until the late 1920s . </P>

When was the first refrigerator invented and by whom