Friday, December 3, 2010

Harry Ferguson


I see an old farmer friend passed away Wednesday and I thought about his love for Massey Ferguson tractors. So I looked up Harry Ferguson to see what kind of man he was. He was quite an inventor.

Irish Eyes had the best story.
"1884-1960
INVENTOR
Ferguson was born at Growell, near Hillsborough, Co Down, on 4 November l884. In l902, he joined his brother Joe in a car and bicycle repair business in Belfast, and in 1904 began to race motor-cycles. In 1909, at Hillsborough, he made the first powered flight in Ireland, travelling 130 yd (118.5 m) in a monoplane he had built. He later drove racing cars, and helped to establish the famous Ulster Tourist Trophy races in 1928.

Ferguson formed his own motor business in 1911, and during World War 1 began to sell tractors to Irish farmers accustomed to horse-drawn ploughs. With the revolutionary concept that tractor and plough should be designed as a unit, Ferguson began to register his own patents. The American tycoon Henry Ford offered him a job, but he preferred his independence and set up an American plant to make Ferguson ploughs. In 1926, the principal patent of the Ferguson system - hydraulic regulation of the working depth of the various implements linked to the tractor - was granted. In time, the system would change the face of agriculture, but commercial success proved elusive.

This photograph was taken in 1910, after one of the first air flights in Ireland. The pilot, Harry Ferguson, had constructed the aeroplane from plans in a magazine and he made the first flight in the country at Hillsborough, Co. Down, on 31st December 1909.

In 1938, Ferguson and Ford reached a 'gentlemen's agreement' by which the American could manufacture tractors for Ferguson to sell, and the deal was sealed only by a handshake. The tractor contributed enormously to wartime food production, but Ferguson's real hope was to raise living standards throughout the world. 'Agriculture,' he said in 1943, 'should have been the first industry to be modernised, not the last.'

Ferguson's later years were clouded by a dispute with the Ford Motor Company, after Henry Ford's death. He won $9.25m compensation in 1952, but a 1953 merger with the Canadian Massey-Harris concern worked out unhappily for him, and he retired to Stow-on-the-Wold, in Gloucestershire. His last ambition was to improve car safety through a four-wheel drive system and anti-lock braking, but he failed to make a commercial breakthrough. He suffered from insomnia and depression and, when he died from a drugs overdose on 25 October 1960, a coroner's jury returned an open verdict.

Read
Colin Fraser, Harry Ferguson: Inventor and Pioneer (1972)."

I liked his quote on agriculture needing to be modernized first, not last. One of my neatest jobs ever was a parts picker and packer for Massey Ferguson part time when I studied agricultural engineering at Ohio State.

Ed

5 comments:

  1. Interesting Ed. I'm currently replacing the water pump on my old Massey Ferguson Super 90. I suppose its only half a Ferguson though. They had a good line of tractors.
    Yes, too bad agriculture gets low priority. Until people get hungry they don't give it much thought.

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  2. I've got my dad's Ferguson 40 that he bought new in 1957. It's had one engine rebuild and would still be a good tractor in the hands of someone with a bit more mechanical understanding than I. I think it's soon going to find that person in the son of the man who originally sold it to my dad. There are times one just has to move on.

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  3. Hey that makes me feel good when we make a connection. I could say I don't write this for my health but I probably do. I need to keep my brain active and my searching makes me privvy to just enough information to keep things going on a blog like this.

    Yes, it has been good for me.

    I marvel at these people way ahead of their time and their suffering compared to how we all just blend in with one another today and it seems hard to me to make a real impact.

    Maybe we are all doing more than we know just by doing good.

    Ed

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  4. I could not resist commenting. Perfectly written!


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