Harry Ferguson. Irish engineer and inventor

 

Henry George Ferguson was an Irish engineer and inventor who is noted for his role in the development of the modern tractor, becoming the first Irishman to build and fly his own aeroplane, and for developing the first four-wheel drive Formula One car.

Born in 1884, Harry was the son of Mary and James and the 4th child of 11 in the Ferguson family.


Harry attended Drumlough primary school not far from the family home at Growell outside Dromore, he was a bit of a lad in his youth and had more interest in doing things he wasn’t allowed to do than attending school, in fact he was expelled from that same school for a short time for misbehaviour.




Harry left school at 14 and he was of small stature and not really suited to this type of farm work but was expected to do his bit on the farm.

Harry attended Belfast Technical College at night to improve his education and skills.

Later on harry took part in motorcycle and car racing in the 1920s and this took place around the well known circuit of the Ards TT. Harry loved speed and was in his element having earned the title “THE MAD MECHANIC”.

Harry also had a desire to build and fly his own aircraft which in fact he did having his first official flight in December 1909, it was also noted that he was the first Irishman to build and fly his own aircraft and the first to have a female passenger.



Now most people relate harry to the famous grey tractor we see all over the world and rightly so as it was a great design and still working today on many small farms, however it was indeed a system of mechanical engineering called the 3 point linkage that harry is famous for, this was his claim to fame and it works of the hydraulic system at the back of the tractor enabling the driver to raise and lower any implement mainly a plough and therefore making farming so much easier, of course the development of such a design took time and this FERGUSON SYSTEM as it is known is on all tractors you see today.





Harry was responsible for many inventions over many years including numerous implements, a well ahead of its time a 5 door hatchback car fitted with a form of ABS and electric windows no less, he also developed a 4WD system which was fitted to a racing track car and driven by Stirling Moss, the same system is also fitted to the classic car Jensen Incerpeter [Jensen ff].

Taken from and with more information. Harry Ferguson Memorial webpage

Attachments:

Harry Ferguson Home.kmz (706 B)

Interesting post, Ledge, and I just happen to like tractors a lot (really!).  Hooray for "The Mad Mechanic!" 

An interesting program in 3 parts has started, trying to recreate Harry's plane. It's on the BBC NI and called " The Great Flying Challenge", hopefully it may be found somewhere on the internet.

This post bought back memories of one I wrote back in 2011 here on the old GEC.
And now I get sidetracked again reading through old posts.
Good post ledge.

The little "Fergie" was a great wee tractor.  Although relatively modest as far as traction power went, Ferguson's innovative 3-point hydraulic linkage for attaching implements to the rear of the tractor was ground-breaking (hah!) and most modern tractors use this system or similar.  They were relatively cheap to buy and run and were very popular on small farms and crofts.




The 3-point linkage consists of a large pin just behind and below the seat which acts as a pivot for the implement, plus two vertically swivelling arms driven by hydraulic rams to raise and lower the implement.  This would all that would be needed for a simple implement like a plough or a disc-harrow.  For implements that needed a power source to drive their internal workings, such as a baler or a reaper, Ferguson provided a Power Take-Off (PTO) shaft driven by the gearbox to power the implement - you can see the splined PTO shaft at the bottom centre of the gearbox between the two chains.  

The two support arms for the implement are free to swivel laterally and well as vertically to accommodate differing widths of implement;  the two check chains are simply to prevent them swinging out and catching the larger rear wheels when there is no implement fitted.





This image shows the Fergie with a two-gang plough fitted to the 3-point linkage. The linkage allowed the driver to lift the plough out of the land when he came to the end of a furrow, so that he could turn the tractor at the endrig to set up for the next furrow. You can also see how this system of fitting the implement gave the tractor/plough combination a much smaller turning-circle when the plough was lifted, as opposed to the older system where the plough had wheels and was simply towed by the tractor.



Cheers,

Frank

We have a few still running around here in as new condition too