Scottish agricultural implement makers

There were a number of key potato digger makers in Scotland. They included A. & W. Pollock, Mauchline, Alexander Jack & Sons, Machine, J.Bisset & Sons, Blairgowrie, and Alexander newlines & Sons, Linlithgow.

One of the oldest of them was Andrew Pollock, Mauchline
who started in business in 1867 (later A. & W. Pollock). By 1878 Andrew was making and exhibiting a number of potato digging machines, of varying strengths from heavy, medium and light machines. The medium digger had wrought iron wheels while the light oone had broad rimmed wrought iron wheels to suit moss land. The diggers had cast steel socks. By 1885 Andrew was manufacturing a patent potato digger with all the gearing covered in.

Many, if not all of us, will be aware of the “tattle holidays” a holiday given from school for a week or a fortnight during the month of October, at the time of the potato harvest, to enable school children to help at the potato harvest.

In some districts of Scotland children were an important source of labour for harvesting the crop. For farmers and other agriculturists it was important that they could draw on the services of the children. By the 1870s teachers and their school boards were not happy to see empty classrooms and schools as children went to the tatties instead of attending school; neither were the school inspectors or members of the school boards. And the Scotch Education Department – as it was known back then – considered this a serious problem. Potato harvesting became a “standing grievance” or even “an evil”. This was more especially so when school grants were paid on attendance: large numbers of children absent at the tatties did not help the school managers secure their grant for the year.
Teachers, school mangers and the Scotch Education Department looked for ways to deal with this “evil”. As schools were required to have a certain number of openings, the period of the summer holiday could be shortened and the corresponding period given in October to allow the children to assist with the tatties. So started the “tattie holidays” in some rural districts of Scotland.

It was up to individual school boards to decide whether they needed to grant a tattie holiday, and how long that holiday would be. The earliest ones varied from one to three weeks, with two weeks being widespread. Neighbouring parishes could have holidays of different lengths. One could have a holiday while a neighbouring parish did not.

Even where tattie holidays were a well-established feature of the rural calendar, they were not always given every year. When the dates and duration of the school summer holiday was considered there was, at times, lengthy discussion on whether a tattie holiday should be given. That discussion and decision led to friction between farmers, parents and children and the education authorities.

There were often headlines in the press noting dissatisfaction of the holidays being granted or refused. on 4 May 1933 the Dundee Courier carried the headline “Potato holiday ban removed”. It noted how “Angus County Council yesterday turned down a recommendation of the Education Committee that potato holidays be discontinued.” There were extensive protests, petitions submitted, and deputations heard. It was a subject that raised passions.

Tattie holidays were widely given during the time of the two world wars, where it was important that the increased potato acreage was safely gathered. After 1946 the attitude towards children picking or gathering tatties hardened. But by this time the tattie holiday was a well-established feature of life in many communities. So important was it in Perthshire that when the education authority tried to ban the holiday shortly after the end of the Second World War there were protests, and the authority had to back down and grant it. Some parts of Scotland, especially Perthshire, continued to grant potato holidays in following decades while others did not.
By the 1980s when the tattie crop was increasingly being harvested by complete harvesters, there was less need for tattle holidays to be given. But by that time educationalists started to consider that an autumn break for the children in October was a good thing: it broke up the long period from the end of the summer holidays until Christmas. They had held a long-standing view that children should have a long summer holiday and to enjoy the warmer weather, than have two weeks in the colder and darker month of October. So, the autumn holiday started across Scotland. Because of the strength of the custom of the tattie holidays – they had become an institutionalised custom by this time – they continued to be known as the tattie holidays, even though eventually children no longer came to undertake that work.

As well as being an institutional custom, these holidays were also a rite of passage for many children across Scotland. For many children it was their first wage and experience of paid work. The money formed an important part of the wages coming into households, paying for essential items such as boots and coats, or even Christmas. And of course, the boilings made an important contribution to the larder.

The photographs of the children at the potato harvest were taken at Blair Mains, Culross, in October 1990. The children were from Crossgates, Fife.

If you were a farmer or agriculturist interested in the early tractors available in Scotland during the First World War you would have been aware of the “Titan”, manufactured by the International Harvester Corporation, Chicago.

In America the Titan was first produced in 1915 for sale by Deering dealers, and continued to be produced until 1922, by which time 78,000 had been built. It was to be a very popular tractor in Britain with over 3,000 units imported between 1914 and 1922. It was a 20hp tractor, selling at £375.

If you were a farmer in Scotland interested in the latest innovations in 1916 you would have been interested in the tractor trials of the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland held in early October that year. At that trial were the leading tractors from Britain and America.

One of these tractors was the “Mogul”, made by International Harvester Company of Great Britain. In the States its parent company, International Harvester Company had been formed in 1902 by the merger of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company and Deering Harvester Company. Its Mogul series was produced in Chicago, and was sold by the McCormick dealer network. It had two tractors: the Mogul 8-16, manufactured between 1914 and 1917, and the Mogul 10-20, made between 1916-20. It was the first of these two that was exported to Britain, where around 500 came into the country mostly through Ministruy of Munitions orders for t he war.

If you are familiar with the Scottish ploughing scene, you will know the name of the plough maker Robert Begg & Sons, Dalry, Ayrshire.
Robert Begg set up as a ploughmaker in Dalry, Ayrshire in 1864. By 1914 he could advertise in The Scottish farmer: “R. Begg, 50 years reputation, Dalry, Ayrshire”.

We know little of his early activities, though he was advertising his ploughs in the North British Agriculturist in April 1876. By 1903 he is recorded as being an agricultural implement maker, a retail ironmonger, a smith and a smith and farrier. By 1912 he was joined by his sons, naming his business Robert Begg & Sons. It was run by Robert Begg and his son John. Robert died in early 1927, and the business was carried on his son. John died by 1941 and the business was transferred to Robert Wilson, Barrhead, who continued it under Begg’s name. In 1951 the business became incorporated as Robert Begg & Sons Limited, but was out of existence by October 1976 and was dissolved in the following year.

Begg’s business was associated with Sharon Street, Dalry, where it is recorded in 1886 and into at least the 1950s. From 1914 his address was the “Implement Works, Dalry.”

Robert Begg took an important step in developing his business in 1912 when he exhibited at his first Highland Show, held in that year at Cupar. This was the start of an association with the show that continued, more or less continuously, until 1960. Begg also took the important step of entering a plough into the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland’s exhibition of farm tractors and tractor implements in 1922. In following years, he also entered ploughs and other exhibits for the Society’s new implement award: in 1923, a double furrow self-lift tractor plough with self-lifting gear, and in 1928, Falconer’s patent mouldboard and Falconer’s coulter.
While Begg’s business changed with the times, so too did his ploughs. In 1914, Robert made a range of ploughs which included drill ploughs, double furrow ploughs, as well as bar point chill ploughs and chill ploughs. His chill ploughs were sold under the name “The Begg”. They were highly esteemed.

The North British Agriculturist provides some nights into the early activities of the company, in its recording of Robert Begg’s obituary. It states:

“The death occurred recently at his residence, Sharon Street, Dalry, of Mr Robert Begg, a noted agricultural implement maker, at the age of 86. Born at Snabe, Frumclog, in Avondale, he left school at the early age of nine to herd cattle in the neighbouring hills, and three years later he commenced his apprenticeship as a blacksmith with his elder brother at Eaglesham. Thereafter he returned to Snabe, where he carried on his father’s smithy until 1868, when he commenced, what later proved to be a very successful business at Dalry. the high-class quality of Mr Beg’s craftsmanship became widely known, resulting in the premises at Dalry having to be extended from time to time. The history of “Begg” ploughs dates back for nearly 60 years,a nd up to the close of his working days he was continually trying some new idea with the view of something still better. At the Highland and Agricultural Society’s tractor trials at Dalkeith, the Begg double-power tractor plough was one of the most efficient forward. Although always leading a busy life in the industrial world he took a keen interest in athletics and the breeding of black Spanish fowls, with which he was very successful in the showered. Mr Begg, who was preceded by his wife about 13 years ago, is survived by a family of three sons and four daughters.”

Today, you can still see Begg’s ploughs at some of the ploughing matches and at vintage agricultural machinery rallies around the country. Ask anyone who Begg was and they will say a leading ploughmaker from Ayrshire.

The photographs of of the Begg ploughs were taken at the Scottish National Tractor Show, Lanark, September 2014.

The combine harvester brought about a revolution in grain handling on Scottish farms and changed the face of the stockyard. Where there were stacks there were now grain bins. These were accompanied by indoor granaries. In the early 1950s corn bins could be purchased from a small number of makers in Braitain. Most were English makers, through A. Newlands & Sons, Linlithgow, manufactured portable galvanised bins to hold 24 bushels, and David Ritchie, Whitehills, Forfar, manufactured indoor and portable field types, which were galvanised.

Some of the English makers ad been well-known manufacturers of iron work since at lest the middle of the nineteenth century. They included Fredk Braby & Co., Ltd, London. Braby also had a premises in Scotland from at least 1949, located on Petershill Road, Glasgow. By the following year the company also had works at Grahanston, Falkirk, and Motherwell. The company advertised itself as: “manufacturers of steel sheets, corrugated and dovetail sheets, black and galvanized; designers and fabricators of pressed steel stairs, locks, steel storage bins, shelving and steel partitions; also presse steel door frames and skirting’s; sheet steel gutters, ridgings and flashings; steel barrows; tanks and plate work; steel buildings; steel windows &c also rollers of light steel bars and sections; manufacturers of ‘Grip Brand’ bar fed boilers”. By 1960 the company specialised in making tanks, galvanised and rustless works; it also held large stocks of rustless furnace parts.

Another key English maker was Hill & Smith Ltd, Brierley Hill, Staffordshire. The company had premises in Scotland from at least 1859 until 1890. In 1859 its premises were at 23 St Enoch Square, Glasgow. It moved premises in 1866 to 195 Buchanan Street so that it could have “greatly increased space to show patterns and keep stock.” It made a wide range of metal products including iron houses and roofs, iron fences and hurdles, iron gates, sheet iron, wire fences, wire stands, and iron girders. Other corn bin makers included Agricultural Supply Co., London, W. Corbett & Co., Wellington, Salop, and B. H. Wilson & Sons Ltd, Keighley, Yorkshire.

The photographs of the corn bins were taken in western Manitoba, Canada, July 2017.

The early farmers who used the mowing and reaping machines were well aware of the difficulties of cutting their grain crops in a wet harvest. In times of difficulty they could draw on older harvesting techniques, in the use of the sickle or the scythe, to cut their crops. However, when these older forms became obsolete or uneconomical to use on a wider scale, the implement makers had to look for a way to get the crop moving onto the binders.

One of the Ayrshire implement and machine makers and agents from the early twentieth century onwards was Robert Howie & Sons, Newmill, Dunlop. By 1927 the business referred to itself as grain and timber merchants. From the mid 1920s it undertook the trades of an agricultural implement maker, agricultural implement manufacturer and an ironfounder. By 1955 ts activities included agricultural, grain, feeding stuffs and seed merchants.

American makers of harvesting machinery started to play an increasing role on the Scottish harvest field from the late 1860s. By the 1890s there were some large names present in the Scottish fields: W. A. Wood, New York, McCormick Harvesting Machine Co., Chicago, Plano Manufacturing Co. Chicago, Johnston Harvester Co., Batavia, New York, D. M. Osborne & Co., New York, Adriance, Platt & Co., New York, W. Deering & Co., Chicago. In the first decade of the twentieth century another name appeared: International Harvester Co.

If we were to think about North American influences on the use of Scottish agricultural implements and machines we would probably think about some of the Americn companies such as John Deere and International. Canadian companies also had their role and we need look no further than the harvest field.

Probably the best known Canadian name in the harvest field is Massey Harris. Massey Harris – as Massey Harris Co., Massey Harris & Co. Ltd, Massey Harvester Co. Ltd, and Massey Manufacturing Co. – has been present in the Scottish fields since at least 1887. The first Massey Harvester reaping machines were exhibited at the Highland Show in 1887 by William Ford, Fenton Barns, Drem, East Lothian. William continued to exhibit at the Show until 1893, by which time other agents were coming on the scene. The Massey Manufacturing Company, 171 Queen Victoria Street, London, did not attend its first Highland Show until 1888, held at Glasgow. It remained an annual exhibitor from 1893.