Our guest speaker on October 30th, John Owens, gave us a talk on an Irish engineer and inventor, Henry George (Harry) Ferguson (1884-1960). Harry Ferguson was born on his family's farm at Growell, County Down. After leaving school he worked at his brother's car and cycle repair business but had soon developed a motor cycle and racing car of his own.
In 1909 he made the first powered flight in Ireland in a machine of his own design and in 1912 he started his own garage in Belfast selling Vauxhall cars. His interests turned to tractors and by 1914 was selling American made tractors, which he found heavy and dangerous to operate.
To overcome tractors turning over when pulling ploughs he invented the three point linkage so that the tractor and plough formed one unit and this 'Ferguson System', patented in 1926, revolutionised farming.
He began to manufacture his own tractors in 1936 and in 1939 he became a partner with Henry Ford and over 300,000 of the Ford Ferguson tractors were built. In 1947 this partnership was dissolved by Henry Ford's grandson and a lawsuit followed in which Harry Ferguson was awarded
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