Letter: Northern Ireland needs a museum dedicated to the tractor inventor Harry Ferguson

This year marks 90 years since the most important tractor in the development of the modern agricultural tractor as we know it today was first assembled by Harry Ferguson in 1933.

The Belfast tractor named after the city in which it was designed and assembled or as it is now more commonly known the Black tractor because of its gloss black paintwork was the result of over 15 years of research and development by the Ulster inventor Henry George Ferguson (1884-1960) or Harry Ferguson as he is known.

The Ferguson Black prototype tractor was the world’s first tractor to incorporate Harry Ferguson’s revolutionary Ferguson System of unit principle, three point converging hydraulic linkage wherein the tractor and implement acted as a single unit for the first time.

Thanks to the Ferguson System the touch of a finger was all that was needed to raise or lower interchangeable implements that could be easily fitted to the hydraulic linkage of the tractor in less than a minute.

Implement depth was automatically maintained by draft control, that is the force required to pull it and safe because when an implement hit an obstruction, automatic release would reduce traction leading to wheel slip thus avoiding damage to the implement, tractor or operator, an important safety feature.

Harry Ferguson hoped that by building the tractor a manufacturer could be persuaded to put it into mass production when they saw the many advantages of his system in operation.

Work had begun on the prototype tractor at Harry Ferguson’s May Street Works in the centre of Belfast in 1931 with a carefully selected and gifted team of local engineers led by Harry Ferguson that included John Chambers, Archie Greer, William Sands (Ferguson’s chief engineer) and John Williams.

Initially called the Ferguson Principle of hydraulic linkage by Harry Ferguson, he would rename it the Ferguson System after starting work on the Black tractor to reflect that the tractor and implements was a complete mechanised farming solution.

The Black tractor was not just advanced because of the integrated Ferguson System of three point hydraulic linkage but in how it was constructed and its specially designed implements. Because of the Ferguson System, weight was not required to provide traction and with that in mind Harry Ferguson designed his tractor to be as light as possible, using the latest technology with lightweight aluminium alloys and vanadium steel alloys ensuring it was still exceptionally sturdy.

Powered by the latest American built Hercules 18HP 4 cylinder petrol/paraffin engine the tractor weighted only 16.4cwt (833Kgs) but could easily pull a two furrow plough in even the most arduous of conditions, making cultivation possible in places other tractors could not go because of their much larger size and weight. In keeping with Harry Ferguson’s lifelong design philosophy it was a neat, simple design so easy to use that anyone could operate it with minimal instruction.

The colour black was carefully chosen by Ferguson to help publicise and draw attention to the tractor in a nod to how Henry Ford and his any colour you like as long as it’s black Model T revolutionised the car, the Ferguson Black tractor would revolutionise the tractor.

After the tractor was completed in 1933, testing was carried out in secret in the fields around the home of Thomas MacGregor Greer, Tullylagan Manor, near Cookstown in Co Tyrone.

MacGregor Greer was a key backer and investor in Harry Ferguson and his Ferguson System and testing was carried out in quite fields away for prying eyes around Tullylagan. The tractor would plough its first furrow in early 1933 and over the next couple of years as testing and development continued he perfected the tractor and implements for production.

Harry Ferguson lobbied the Stormont Parliament for funding to help put his tractor into production. Although he found support by some MPs who realised the leap forward in technology the Black tractor would make to agriculture, Ferguson’s great hope to produce his tractor in Northern Ireland was never realised.

In the end the production version of the Black tractor was built for Harry Ferguson by David Brown in Huddersfield, England from 1936 - 1939. The Ferguson Brown Type A as it was named was the world’s first production tractor with Ferguson System and a total of 1356 were built.

Today Ferguson based three point hydraulic linkage is still a standard fitment in the latest tractors and Harry Ferguson is internationally recognised as the father of the modern agricultural tractor, a direct result of the pioneering work incorporated into the development and building of this little Black tractor.

A success story that changed world agriculture, helping to reduce world hunger and poverty, something we from Northern Ireland can be justly so proud of.

The Ferguson Black tractor is still owned by relatives of Harry Ferguson and is currently on loan to the Science Museum in London, although despite its historical significance as the tractor that gave the Ferguson System to the world it sadly is not currently on public display.

Perhaps this is another reason that Northern Ireland should have a dedicated Harry Ferguson museum.

Stevan Patterson, Castlederg