Refrigeration and consulting engineer; founder of ice hockey in Australia 1906–8; founder Melbourne Ice Skating & Refrigeration Co in 1904 or earlier; and head of the Adelaide and Melbourne Glaciaria Syndicates (1903–6). Henry Newman Reid, pioneer of national ice sports and founder of ice sports in Australia, was the leader of an entrepreneurial syndicate that established Australia's first ice rink in 1904 at 91 Hindley Street, Adelaide, the western continuation of Rundle Mall. Reid's syndicates went on to build the first ice rinks in Melbourne in 1906, at South Gate, and in Sydney in 1907, at Railway Square, Haymarket. His world-class facilities for figure skating, speed skating and ice hockey were built with venture capital over a century ago and produced the first two generations of National ice champions, including his own sons and daughter, and many others who represented Australia at Olympic and World Championships. The Melbourne and Sydney Glaciaria were the first and only Australian rinks for 30 years and the Melbourne rink that Reid initially managed himself, cradled the birth of national ice hockey competition, and the national organising bodies for both ice hockey (1908) and skating (1911). The Melbourne Glaciarium is also the story of the first permanent moving picture palace and the birth of the silent film era in Australia.
Member of the Adelaide, Melbourne & Sydney Glaciarium Syndicates; player on the 1st Australian Ice Hockey Team of 1906, Melbourne; patron of the Sydney Glaciarium Ice Hockey Club, 1920 and president in 1921. Credited with introducing figure and speed skating to Australia during the Grand Era for Ice Rinks (1890–1920). Poole was enlisted by Reid's first rink development syndicate from Britain where he was reputedly the best rink manager. He arrived in Melbourne in 1899 and was involved with the planning and development of all three of the first Australian rinks. Poole became the first manager of Sydney Glaciarium where he was an early player, administrator and selector in ice hockey, figure skating and speed skating. Made the first Life Member of the NSW Ice Hockey Association Inc in 1933, and active in the NSW Soccer Association. He was also the second instructor at Minto Skating Club in Ottawa, and he returned to Britain on numerous occasions where he was manager of the Streatham Ice Arena and the Streatham Redskins Ice Hockey Team in the 1930s. Poole introduced figure and speed skating; helped establish the first three rinks in three different States of Australia; played on the first Australian ice hockey team; and then made a significant contribution to ice hockey and rink management in NSW.
The ice hockey match officially regarded as the first organised game in Australia took place at the Melbourne Glaciarium on July 17th, 1906. This is the earliest known Australian record of a specific game in a specific place at a specific time, with a recorded score, between two identified teams. The match was reported in 'Melbourne Punch' newspaper on July 19th, 1906: 'The first hockey match — Australia v. America — played on ice in this city, which took place last Tuesday night at the Glaciarium may be marked a complete success, and as the teams had been practising some time, was a good exhibition of the game, and most picturesque. The Australians wore full white suits, the Baltimore boys white shirts and grey trousers. Technically, the Australians were not up to the Americans, but put up a very good game, the result of which was a draw, each team scoring a goal. The sight of the players swiftly gliding and dodging about the ice was very pretty and kaleidoscopic in its changes. Fireman T. H. Miller, of Baltimore, played a magnificent game — in fact, he was the centre of the picture during the whole period of the game — just over thirty minutes.' Australia: Herbert Blatchly (capt), Dunbar Poole, C Kelly, James Thonemann, Gordon Langridge, Ramsay Salmon. America (USS Baltimore): F G Randell (capt), R Stirling, T H Miller, J Benditti, D F Kelly, J T Connolly.
Among the first generation of International champions from Reid's rinks were Kenneth George Kennedy, the first Australian Winter Olympian and the 1st Australian Olympic and World Championship Ice Hockey Teams, Squaw Valley, California, US, 1960. Australia's first International medal came in 1987, 80 years after Reid established the first rinks and almost a quarter of a century after Kennedy had first argued that overseas trips were necessary for Australia to reach world standard. Australia won IIHF Pool D gold that year and the record for the highest ever score in a World Championship against New Zealand — 58–0 at Perth. A further 10 medals followed over the next 20 years. Then, at the 2007 Championship in South Korea (Div II Group B), the Mighty Roos narrowly missed promotion, losing only to the host nation. In 2008, Australia defeated China 1–0 on home ice at Newcastle, achieving Division I World Championship standard in the centenary year of Australian ice hockey. NHL correspondent Bill Meltzer had earlier noted: 'Ice Hockey Australia hopes a day comes when the AIHL is also a choice off-season destination for foreign pros on the rise — much like fall and winter league baseball in the US and Latin America — as well as a breeding ground for an Australian national team solidly entrenched in the IIHF's Division I level.'
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