NO 1 RETURNS TO ITS TULLYLAGAN HOME – Leslie Hutchinson

The manor at Tullylagan recently restored by its present owner, Mr Raymond Turkington. The house has been restored as it was when Harry Ferguson first visited it before the Great War. Photo: G Field, Sutton, Tenbury Wells, Worcs

On Saturday 8th June 1991 Ferguson type ‘A’ No 1 returned to its former home near Cookstown, Northern Ireland, after an absence of 45 years.

The occasion was the Tullylagan Manor ‘Heritage Day’, a tribute to the memory of the late Thomas MacGregor Greer DL, JP, a former director in the pre-war Ferguson farm machinery companies who died on 9th June 1941. This event also happened to be the first ever organised by the Ferguson Club in Northern Ireland. ‘No l’ was recently restored by Club members John Burge and David Bull. It is due to their efforts that the tractor is now in truly pristine condition.

Normally ‘No l’ is on permanent display in Massey-Ferguson’s museum at Banner Lane where it is one of the company’s most prized exhibits.

When the idea of a tribute was originally conceived one or two cynics thought it unlikely that ‘No l’ would be allowed out of the factory gates, let alone to Northern Ireland. However Mr Aaron Jones. Managing Director of Massey-Ferguson Tractors Ltd, recognised the significance of the event and very kindly permitted ‘No l’ to return to its former home. We believe this is the first time that one of the world’s largest manufacturers has sent one of their vintage models to a venue in Northern Ireland. Needless to say, all concerned were absolutely delighted by this and a very big ‘thank you’ is due to Aaron Jones and Massey-Ferguson. without whose generosity it would not have been possible.

Prior to departure, ‘No l’ was completely serviced, checked and resprayed by John Burge and David Bull, who also volunteered to accompany the tractor to Cookstown. Thus on 8th June 1991, ‘No l’ was reunited with its original ‘B’ type plough, No 1, as well as its general cultivator, in the very same yard to which they were delivered 55 years ago in 1936. This must be a terrific achievement by any standards and one of which the Ferguson Club can be justly proud.

The Ulster Folk and Transport Museum was also represented in the form of a full sized replica Ferguson monoplane loaned by our good friend John Moore, keeper of the museum’s transport section. This particular replica was, for several years, on display at Belfast International Airport.

In order to transport it the wings and certain other fittings have to be removed and John was already at Tullylagan at 7am assembling the machine. Recent members who are interested in Harry Ferguson’s pioneering aviation activities are recommended to read John’s excellent article in the Spring 1990 Journal, Vol 4 No 1. (Back issues are still available – see details below. John Moore also wrote in ‘Fly-Past’ magazine, December 1984, on the same subject. Editor)

Among the other Fergusons present were four other Ferguson type ‘A’/Ferguson-Browns. Type ‘A’ No 307, now owned by Noel Greer, has a special association with Tullylagan Manor as its original owner, the late Robert McGucken, saw the ‘Black Tractor’ being demonstrated here in the early ‘thirties. No 307 was itself demonstrated near Cookstown in August 1937.

Dan McTaol from Ballymoney, Co Antrim, attended with his 1937 model, registered as DZ 5220. Dan is a well known vintage tractor enthusiast and appears at many events all over the province. This tractor has Dunlop rear wheels fitted with 24″ tyres instead of the normal 22″ size. Ian McAllistair of Dervock sent his 1937 model, No 467, and driven by Robert Kidd of Broughshane, Co Antrim.

‘No l’ on arrival at its former home for the years 1936 to 1946. Ferguson Club executive officer George Field, with David Bull and John Burge who carried out this impeccable piece of restoration. Harry Ferguson was uncompromising when it came to the presentation of his machinery. He would have been well satisfied with the standard of turnout for this, his first production tractor. Photo: Mid-Ulster News

Published in Volume 5 No. 2 Winter 1991

Footnote: During September 1991 the farm buildings at Tullylagen Manor were extensively damged by fire.  The room where Harry Ferguson slept on his early visits to the manor and the garage and coach house were fortunately undamaged.  The main building including the hydro-electric plant, stables and function hall were gutted.  At the time of writing the extent of structural damage is unclear.  The cause of the fire is unknown.  Leslie Hutchinson, Newsletter Winter 1991,

Marketing of the Ferguson-Brown/’A’, David Markham

The following article has been reproduced from The Ferguson Club Journal, volume 4. No.1, 1990.

1935 was the year in which Harry Ferguson and David Brown reached agreement to manufacture and market the first Ferguson System tractor. The Model ‘A’. Two companies were formed, one with responsibility for engineering and marketing, Harry Ferguson Ltd., the other, David Brown Tractors Ltd., (a subsidiary of David Brown and Sons) with responsibility for the manufacturing side.

Because the new tractor was so revolutionary, and so small, it was vital to convince both farmers and dealers that the System worked and could be of benefit to them. Ferguson therefore embarked on an extensive marketing campaign. This took a variety of forms.

The first public outing for the Ferguson ‘A’ in England took place on Dormington Court Farm near Hereford in May 1936. Here the tractor is performing the classic Ferguson demonstration of tilling a small fenced compound. Not the hop yards at the rear. Does anyone know which field this was in and anyone who was there? Copyright photo courtesy, Institute of Ag. History and Museum of Rural Life, Reading University

Demonstrations
The first public demonstration took place near Hereford at Dormington Court Farm in May, 1936, when Ferguson described his new tractor as being “a revolution in tractor designing”. Other demonstrations followed in Ulster, Eire and Derbyshire. One of the Ulster demonstrations led to the first tractor being sold, No.12 off the production line. This was bought in June, 1936, by Mr R.D. Chambers of Tullynaskeagh, Down-patrick, County Down, on whose farm the demonstration had taken place. Coincidentally, Mr Chamber’s son, John, was a member of Ferguson’s design team!

The new tractor, known simply as ‘the Ferguson’, attracted considerable interest wherever it was shown. The demonstrations were arranged with Ferguson’s usual concern for detail and flair from showmanship (plug leads were taken off and planks thrown under the tractor wheels when ploughing). A common feature of the demonstrations was the cultivation of a roped-off enclosure measuring 6 yards by 4 yards in order to show that every square foot of land could be tilled. This was possible because the unit principle design enabled the tractor and implement to be reversed like a car, making it possible to cultivate the whole of such a small plot without even leaving a wheel mark. The farmer’s response was excellent, and the little tractor proved to onlookers the advantages of the Ferguson System by out-performing heavier, more ¬powerful rivals, especially in difficult conditions. This was the case at a
demonstration at the Rowett Research Institute in Aberdeen; the Institute subsequently placed an order.

On the left – 16cwt and 20hp. On the right 34cwt and 20hp (manufacturers rating).
Little wonder many did not believe!

One aspect of the marketing programme was that Harry Ferguson realised the value of giving demonstrations to well-known personalities in return for the publicity that could be obtained for his machinery. Ferguson himself took charge of these imp0l1ant demonstrations. Demonstrations were given to Lloyd George on his estate at Churt, near Haslemere, Surrey, and to the author, Henry Williamson, on his farm at Stiffkey on the North Norfolk coast. The latter wrote frequently about his tractor in his books (such as ‘The Story of a Norfolk Farm’ and ‘Lucifer before Sunrise’), and his countryside articles for the Daily Express. Despite this publicity, and the fact that ‘free demonstrations without obligation’ were offered, sales were slow.

From late 1938, in an effort to improve sales, some considerable effort was put into building up an export business. Export enquiries were invited, and during 1938 demonstrations took place in Norway which was believed to be a promising market, because in many ways it was ideal terrain for the Model’ A’. Small, very steep fields with many obstructions made it seem uniquely suitable for what the Ferguson System had to offer.

John Chambers on an ‘A’ making a good job of an opening ridge or ‘cop’. Demonstrations like this one in Norway on April 8th 1938 never failed to attract great interest and many, intending to scoff; came away convinced that they had seen the future.

 

Agricultural Shows
Like other manufacturers, Ferguson realised that agricultural shows provided a valuable opportunity to attract buyers. An early consignment was sent to the 1936 Balmoral Show in Northern Ireland. Ferguson Farm Machinery was subsequently exhibited throughout England, Scotland and Wales at all the main shows (the Royal; Smithfield; Highland; Peterborough; Great Yorkshire).

At these shows a number of Medals were awarded to Ferguson-Brown Ltd. for their power farming machinery, and this of course was ideal publicity. In 1938 a gold medal was won at the Isle of Man Show and silver medals at both the Highland Show in Dumfries, and the Peterborough Show.

The Press
Ferguson’s marketing company spent liberally on promotion and advertising. Advertisements aimed at both farmers and dealers were regularly placed in Implement and Machinery Review, Fanner’s Weekly, and Farmer and Stockbreeder, with slogans such as ‘Handsome profits at last’, ‘Monopoly for the distributor’, and ‘It’s easy with the unit principle’. It was stressed that the machinery was all British. Much use was also made of testimonials from satisfied owners, and these appeared both in advertisements and ‘Contact’, the David Brown in-house magazine. A great deal of descriptive literature was produced and made freely available. The main object of the literature was to show that all farm work, whatever the size of the farm, could be carried out by one or more Fergusons as their versatility enabled them to entirely supersede horses.

Ferguson also placed exaggerated claims with the farming press such as ‘extensive demands for Ferguson machinery are being made’. He informed Implement and Machinery Review in May, 1936, that “over a thousand have already been sold”. Consignment photos showing train and shiploads of tractors and implements were sent in to the press. These gave the impression that the tractors and their equipment were selling welI. In truth the machinery was slow to selI, and stocks of unsold tractors were beginning to accumulate. When the inevitable amalgamation of the manufacturing and sales companies took place in June, 1937, it was described in the press an being “a result of the immediate success of the Ferguson hydraulic farm machinery, coupled with the difficulty of meeting demand”.

The training school
In order to encourage sales, and to overcome sales resistance, a special, fully equipped training school was set up by Ferguson at the Huddersfield works in 1936. This was run by Bob Annat, a local farmer’s son. The aim was to improve the standards of servicing, and operation of the tractor, to ensure that their performance was up to scratch. Two week courses were arranged free of charge for. farmers, operators and dealers to learn how to handle, operate and maintain the equipment. Originally the site covered just one acre, but this was eventually enlarged to a 50 acre experimental farm.

From late 1939 onwards, a special effort was made to make known the facilities and the school was widely advertised. Over 400 benefited from the instruction during 1938 alone.

The idea of the training school later became an important part of Massey-Ferguson’s thinking with the present school being set up at Stoneleigh, Warwickshire, in the 1940s.

After-sales service
Every tractor was sold with a six month warranty, covering all defects except those relating to tyres (supplied by Dunlop), and electrical equipment (supplied by British Thomson-Houston). A record card was then kept on every tractor sold. Any problems were noted with urgent service needs receiving the promptest attention. Even if there had been no problems with the equipment, this was still noted on the record card.

In order to give speedy and economic service as welI as demonstrations to their customers (both farmer and trade), Ferguson-Brown Ltd. fitted out a number of Austin 10 vans to serve both these purposes. These were fully equipped inside and even included a whole engine which could be pulIed to the back of the van for inspection.

In spite of the determined marketing efforts, and the superiority of the design, demand for the Model ‘A’ developed slowly. This was partly because many farmers remained doubtful of the virtues of such an unconventional, small tractor, and partly because of the cost of changing to the Ferguson System. The new tractor cost £224, almost twice the price of a Fordson, and to buy a Ferguson meant additional expense for the special implements required (at £26 each) whereas a Fordson would probably suit the existing equipment on the farm (it was possible however to buy the tractor on hire purchase, the first payment being £69, with the balance being paid over 12, 18, or 24 months). A major factor why the market was slow to respond was the mid-thirties was an unfavourable period for the economy, and agriculture in particular.

Harry Ferguson and David Brown could not agree on a solution, and decided to go their own separate ways, Ferguson to join forces with Ford in America, Brown to produce his own tractor. Brown agreed to honour all Ferguson-Brown Ltd. engagements in the way of after-sales service, and David Brown Tractors Ltd. were given a license to selI the remaining tractors in stock.

The partnership ended in January 1939, after only 1350 had been bui1t (compared to some 43,000 Fordsons over the same period). In strictly commercial terms the first Ferguson production tractor had achieved little success, but it did sell welI in parts of Scandinavia, Scotland and the Channel Isles, where its special advantages were most useful. Its importance, however, was twofold: firstly, it has gone down in history as the first production tractor in the world to incorporate 3 point linkage, and hydraulic lift with draft control system; secondly, it put David Brown Tractors Ltd. on the road to becoming a major British manufacturer for agricultural machinery, although they now sadly have become part of the Case-International conglomerate.

One of the last ‘A’s, No.1259, owned by the Ferguson Club’s Executive Officer, at a farm sale in Worcestershire, September 1988. Note the original drawbar stays and original 9¬22 Dunlop rear tyres. This tractor has a very detailed history and will be the subject of a future article in the Ferguson Journal. Photograph by George Field

Originall published in Vol. 4. No.1, 1990, Reprinted in Club Journal No.56 Summer 2007

Footnote: The author asks in the first image caption, ‘Does anyone know which field this was in and anyone who was there?”  There was a reply in the following Journal, issue 57, Winter 2007/2008:

“Re: the question in Journal No.56, ‘does anybody know the demonstration field in which the first public outing in England of the Ferguson ‘A’ took place’? Yes! I, Ian Ferguson, with the owner’s permission, stood in the exact spot. That information was known to me when it was first published in The Ferguson Club Journal, volume 4. No.1, 1990. Having joined the Ferguson Club in 1987 I thought it my duty to make some enquires, which I did at Hereford library where – upon a small inclusion appeared in a 1936 copy of the Hereford Times which read, a meal was held in the Boothhal! auspice of Imperial Motor Co. for some 40-50 influential farmers, where Harry Ferguson gave a speech before proceeding about five miles east of Hereford on the A348 to the demonstration field at Dormington Court, where about 400 people attended. During my enquires by chance I spoke with one of the three boys in the photograph, he remembered the event hut couldn’t remember where. The man with his hand on the post to the left of Harry Fergusons hat, I believe is a Mr Tom Bradstock who farmed with his father at Freetown, which is about three miles east of Dormington Court, well respected breeder of Hereford cattle, still going strong today. This area was good for growing hops and rearing cattle.”

Ferguson Brown Orchard (1938): Richard Bennie

The story starts back in 2010 when my son Douglas, at that point a young lad came running across Campsie Showfield telling me he had been talking to a man whose father had a Ferguson Brown Orchard. I myself had never seen or heard of a Ferguson Brown Orchard and dismissed him telling him there was no such thing.

As often happens in these situations we then bumped into ‘the man’ at various sales and shows across the country and which developed a friendship with him and his father, Doug McNicol over the weeks and months that followed.

Over a number of conversations with them it transpired that they did in fact possess a Ferguson Brown Orchard and which they had bought in the mid-eighties in Yorkshire and brought home to Scotland where it had been out to a small number of shows in the early years of ownership and then stored away in a shed until we secured it in 2015.

At a visit to Doug McNicols home in Perthshire to see his collection we peered into the shed and couldn’t see a Ferguson Brown however after clambering over a number of larger tractors which were all packed in “wheel to wheel” there she was sitting there gathering dust. A few photographs and some further research verified that it was indeed a rare Ferguson Brown Orchard with its tell-tale tubular wishbone front axle set back to provide a tighter turning circle.

Looking down on the Ferguson Brown Orchard’s wishbone tubular front axle

The Ferguson Brown Orchard on display at the Yorkshire Farming museum. Stuart Gibbard

With regard to the tractor itself Mr McNicol had been coming home from a holiday down South with his caravan in the mid-eighties just at the point the Yorkshire Farm Museum was getting established and called in for a look around. There was a Ferguson Brown on display inside the museum at the time which caught Mr McNicols attention and he was looking over it when his young daughter came running into the museum shouting “dad, dad there’s another tractor outside”. Mr McNico] took himse]f outside and saw what was another Ferguson Brown then realising a]most instantly it was something a bit different. It was a Ferguson Brown Orchard model. He promptly made some enquiries at the Museum and discovered that the 2nd tractor was owned by RV Rogers Nursery in Pickering who had bought it new in 1938 from Kay & Backhouse in York with it having worked in the nursery all its life before being loaned to the Museum in the mid-eighties.

The Ferguson Brown Orchard as found in Doug McNicols Perthshire collection.

Doug then extended his holiday by two days and took himself off to R.V. Rogers Nursery where he managed to persuade the family to sell him the tractor. The story told being that having successfully bought the tractor he immediately drove back home to Scotland with his caravan. unhitched it, hitched on his trailer and promptly drove back to Yorkshire to collect it in case they changed their mind.

 R.Y. Rogers Nursery’s at that time by a strange coincidence bought berry canes from a farm not too far from the McNicols home and the deal that was struck for the tractor involved a trailer load of berry canes going south to Yorkshire, there won’t be many Ferguson Browns that have been bought with a load of berry canes!!

My son Douglas and I had asked Doug that if he was ever selling the tractor to give us a shout never thinking it would be sold however we subsequently got a surprise call in November 2015 to say his daughter who first saw the tractor back in the mid-eighties was looking to raise money for a house deposit and given that she had ‘spotted it first’ Doug had decided to sell it in order to assist her.

The deal was done, not with berry canes, I might add, and my son and I collected the tractor in December 2015 complete with its Ferguson Brown 2 furrow plough.

The tractor itself is a 1938 Ferguson Brown Orchard, Yorkshire registration number BAJ 960 and serial No.1141. It is a straight petrol, all Ferguson Browns having the two tanks whether petrol or petrol / paraffin the distinguishing feature being the water temperature gauge on the petrol/paraffins. The tractor has a deep sump David Brown engine found in models beyond Serial No.500 or thereby, the earlier models having a Coventry Climax engine.

We understand there were around 1350 Ferguson Browns manufactured back in the day with around 10 of these being Orchard models with only a handful of Orchards still surviving today. A rare tractor and the first to incorporate the famous Ferguson three point linkage.

The current condition of the Ferguson Brown Orchard tractor.

 Published in Journal No.91, Spring 2019.