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Henry George (Harry) Ferguson (1884-1960) ofFerguson,Massey-Harris-Ferguson andMassey-Ferguson

See alsoHarry Ferguson: 1910 First Flight in Ireland

1884 November 4th. Born at Growell, near Dromore, County Down, Ireland, the son of James Fisher Ferguson, a farmer, and his wife Mary Bell. The family was three girls and eight boys and was the forth one born. James was a member of the Plymouth Brethren. Brother ofJoseph Bell Ferguson andVictor Ferguson

1900 At fourteen he left school to work on the family farm

1902 Ferguson went to work with his brotherJoe, the oldest in the family, atJ. B. Ferguson and Co, his bicycle and car repair business in Shankhill Road, Belfast.

Attended evening classes at the Belfast Technical College where he metJohn Lloyd Williams and made the acquaintance of the wealthy landowner and car enthusiastT. McGregor Greer

1904 Began to race motorcycles.

1908 He developed an interest in aviation and visited air-shows at Blackpool and Rheims

1909 December 31st. Ferguson became the first person to fly in Ireland, when he took off in a monoplane he had designed and built himself and fitted with an 8-cylinderJAP engine. He flew for 130 yards.

1910 August 8th. Flies 3 miles to win a challenge

1910 October. Crashes and wrecks the plane and is left unconscious for a time

c.1910 Started work on aeroplane engines withJohn Lloyd Williams asHarry Ferguson Ltd

1911 After falling out with his brother over the safety and future of aviation Ferguson decided to go it alone, and he foundedMay Street Motor Co selling Maxwell, Star, Darracq and Vauxhall cars and Overtime Tractors.William Sands commenced working for him here.

1912 He re-named the company toHarry Ferguson Limited.

1912 Takes up racing Vauxhall cars but not for very long. WithA. J. Hancock andW. Watson drove for theVauxhall team in the French Grand Prix.

1913 Married Maureen Watson the daughter of the owner of a Grocery store in Dromore. Both families boycotted the wedding. They were married for 47 years.

1913 Patented improvements to carburettors

1917 Toured Ireland promoting the use of tractors on behalf of the government in order to increase food production during the war

1916 Ferguson accepted an invitation from the Irish board of agriculture to oversee the use of tractors as part of the ‘Grow More Food’ campaign in Ireland. This and his own agricultural experiences suggested to him the need for a small tractor with interchangeable implements.

1917 December. Ferguson saw at first hand the weakness of having tractor and plough as separate articulated units - he devised a plough which could be rigidly attached to a Model T Ford car - the Ford Eros, which became a limited success, competing with the Model F Fordson which had started being imported and would soon be produced in Cork.

1920 Has first meeting with Henry Ford in Dearborn and demonstrates the new plough. Accompanies by Sands

1922 May Second visit to the US accompanied by John Williams where they sign a production agreement with John Shunk of Bucyrus, Ohio but despite a lot of publicity, the deal was never implemented

1922 Third visit to the US and makes an agreement with Roderick Lean of Mansfield, Ohio to produce the plough but he went bankrupt in 1924

1923 December. Patents a floating skid for ploughs to control the depth

1925 Visits US again with Williams and made contact with Eber and George Sherman. In December they set up Ferguson-Sherman Inc. Harry and his wife and Williams spend a year in Evansville getting the busness started. The new enterprise developed a ploughing system that incorporated a Duplex hitch system which fitted the Fordson line tractors. Ferguson's new hydraulic system was first seen on the Ferguson-Brown Model A tractors.

1928 The first Ulster T.T. run and Ferguson was the driving force in setting this up

1928 The Ferguson-Sherman business collapses when Ford cease production of their tractor

1931 Commenced planning to build the 'Black Tractor' of their own design that would handle the plough through the three-point linkage they were producing. It used an American 4-cylinder Hercules engine and the gears, transmission and steering byDavid Brown and Sons

1935 The Belfast company name changed toHarry Ferguson (Motors) Ltd and a new sales company formed in England to sell the tractor asHarry Ferguson Ltd. A manufacturing company was formed asDavid Brown Tractors

1935 The Ferguson family rent a house at Honley near Huddersfield for one year

1936 First tractor production with the engine changed to an 18-20hpCoventry Climax. These first tractors were branded asBrown-Ferguson

1936 May. First public demonstration held near Hereford

1937 June The sales and production companies were merged asFerguson-Brown Tractors Ltd

1938 October. He visits the US and Henry Ford again and they agree to work together

1939 January. The Brown Ferguson collaboration ended with Brown launching their own higher powered tractor and Ferguson entering in to a deal with Henry Ford

1939 January. Ferguson with his family, William Sands, John Chambers and Harold Willey sail for the US on the Aquitania

1939 June 12th. The Ford/Ferguson tractor is launched in the US

1939 October 12th. Ferguson returns to Britain and demonstrates the new tractor at the Greenmount Agricultural College, Muckamore near Belfast

1940 May. Demonstrates the tractor to Ford in the UK but reluctant to replace their production of the Fordson

1946 December. First production in the UK using the Banner Lane Factory, Coventry under the Standard Motor Co

c1946 Bought Abbotswood estate in Stow-on-the-Wold

1947 Ford cease making the tractor in the US and a long legal case between Ferguson and Ford commenced and was only ended in April 1952

1948 October 11th. First tractor built by Ferguson in the US

1950 April. FormedHarry Ferguson Research with Freddy Dixon and Tony Rolt to work on the Crab vehicle

1953 Ferguson merged with Massey Harris to become Massey-Harris-Ferguson Co. This merger eventually turned into Massey Ferguson.

1960 October 25th. Died

1960 Obituary^[1]

THE name of Mr. Harry Ferguson, whosedeath, we regret to record, took place onOctober 25, will always be associated withtractors and farm implements - the "FergusonSystem," which he created. But inhis early years he was concerned with motorcars and motor-cycles, and it was a requestfrom a Government department which sethim investigating the whole question ofpower farming, and proved the turning pointin his life.

Harry Ferguson was born at Dromore,County Down, on November 4, 1884, andat the age of sixteen he set up a small businessin Belfast for the sale and repair of motorcarsand motor-cycles. He also began toenter vehicles in sporting events, and wonseveral competitions. After a few years hisinterest extended to aircraft, and he designedand built a small monoplane. This machineflew on December 31, 1909, and Fergusonbecame the first man to fly a heavier-than-airmachine in Ireland.

In 1911 he returned tothe motor industry, and established a salesagency in Belfast. On the outbreak of warin 1914, Ferguson was asked by the IrishDepartment of Agriculture to take chargeof the operation and maintenance of all thetractors and farm implements in Ireland,and this gave him the opportunity to studya range of equipment which, he soon realised,had many faults. His first conclusion wasthat a large acreage of land was needed tofeed the animals used to draw the implements,and that if mechanical power were used,those large areas of land could be freed forcrop production.

By 1920, Ferguson had evolved a newform of tractor-plough linkage, and twoyears later, the Ferguson-Sherman Corporationwas formed at Evansvllle, Indiana,U.S.A., to make Ferguson ploughs withautomatic depth control. These ploughswere mounted on the tractor, forming anintegral power-ploughing machine, andthousands were sold. From this startingpoint Ferguson went on to evolve a completeimplement system, hydrauhca11y controlledand applicable to a wide range of farmingneeds.

Thus, by 1935 the "Ferguson System" was in full production, and thenext step was to design a light tractor,specially suited to the implements. By1936 this tractor was in production atHuddersfield. After about 1000 tractorshad been sold the outbreak of war in 1939stopped production in England, and Fergusonturned to the United States, makingan agreement with the Ford Motor Companyfor manufacture of the machines. Altogether306,221 tractors were made by Ford.

In 1946 there came the well-known breakwith Ford, which led eventually to a celebratedlawsuit between Ferguson and aFord subsidiary. For a time tractors continuedto be made by Ford under an interimagreement, but at the end of June, 1947,manufacture ceased. In due course thelegal action was settled by a payment ofover £3,000,000 to Ferguson, but meanwhilehe had to make arrangements for the productionof his tractor. In America this wasdone by building a new factory in Detroit,and in England by an agreement with theStandard Motor Company to undertakemanufacture of the tractor at Coventry.

When the new production arrangementswere under way, Ferguson turned his attentionto road vehicles again, and to givehim freedom of action in this field, arrangedwith the Massey-Harris Company of Torontofor a merger of the two businesses. Fergusonbecame chairman of the new Massey-Harris-Ferguson Company, which wasformed in 1953, but, a year later, decided todevote his whole time to his motor-carprojects, resigned from the chairmanship,and sold out his interests in the tractor andimplement business. To facilitate this newwork a small company, Harry FergusonResearch, Ltd., was formed, and it is knownthat new designs were produced, but noofficial information about them had beenreleased at the time of Harry Ferguson's death.

See Also

Sources of Information

• Wikipedia
• 1961 Dun and Bradstreet KBE
• Harry Ferguson, Inventor and Pioneer. Colin Fraser. 1972
• Flight magazine of 8th January 1910.