But to me one tractor in particular added so much to the event and that was the rare appearance of a gleaming Ferguson-Brown Type A, serial number 3.
Owned by the Patterson family from Kilkeel the tractor was the 3rd production Ferguson System tractor ever built. It was assembled at the David Brown factory in Huddersfield, England, United Kingdom in 1936 for Harry Ferguson Ltd. The last time this tractor was on public view was six years ago in 2019 and it was marvellous to see it on display once again in this the centenary year of the Ferguson Master Patent.
As well as it being only the world’s 3rd production Ferguson System tractor to be assembled it is also a historically very important prototype of the last component in Harry Ferguson’s Ferguson System of farm mechanisation, and that is the rear mounted built in Power Take Off (PTO). PTO allows the driving of mounted implements like a potato spinner working in conjunction with the Ferguson three point converging hydraulic linkage while the tractor is moving.
To allow the PTO to be fitted, William John Sands, Harry Ferguson’s chief engineer, a man who could take the brilliant ideas of Harry Ferguson and with considerable engineering skill fabricate working examples, spent many weeks fabricating the back end of the tractor after it was taken from the production line.
William Sands had been involved with Harry Ferguson in the assembly of the world’s first Ferguson System tractor, the Ferguson Belfast Black Prototype tractor of 1933 on which the Ferguson-Brown Type A was based.
The rear end of the tractor is made from steel plate. William Sands carefully hand cut, shaped and welded it together to include the rear PTO.The modification of internal gears by reversing the gearbox layshafts and input gears allowed the hydraulics and the PTO to operate while the tractor was static. This meant you could raise and drive implements while the tractor was stationary, a feature never incorporated into production Ferguson-Brown Type A tractors as implements could only be raised if the tractor was moving.
Ideas of central PTO and hydraulics able to operate while the tractor was stationary were patented by Harry Ferguson in 1937 and would be a standard feature of the Ford-Ferguson that was introduced in 1939. The ground-breaking little grey Ford-Ferguson was made possible by the Gentleman’s Agreement in 1938 between Harry Ferguson and Henry Ford and with its mass production it finally made ideas of the modern tractor envisioned by Harry Ferguson in his 1925 Ferguson Master Patent a reality in a tractor even the poorest farmer could afford.
As we mark the centenary of the modern tractor thanks to Harry Ferguson’s 1925 Ferguson Master Patent the founding of a Harry Ferguson Museum of Innovation will tell the full story of the development of the modern tractor.
A story that can only be properly told if it includes people like William Sands, John Chambers and Archibald Greer, gifted engineers who all played key roles in its development and sadly to date who don’t have even a blue plaque to mark their many achievements. The museum will address this to properly honour them, and the other great innovators and achievers from Northern Ireland.
If like me, you feel strongly in the need for a Harry Ferguson Museum of Innovation, please take the time and sign the on-line petition to ask the Minister for Communities to take action and finally found the museum.