Scottish agricultural implement makers

The major agricultural shows dominated the agricultural calendar. If you were a Scottish farmer, the peak of the show year was the Highland Show or the Royal Highland Show. For the Scottish implement and machine makers, it was one of the highlights, if not the highlight of the year. It was the place to launch new implements and machines (and enter one for the prestigious “New Implement” award), and to sell manufactures to the Scottish and other farmers and agriculturists. For some of the most important Scottish makers the Royal Show, or the “Royal”, usually held in June, was another important event in their calendars. So too, was the Smithfield, held in the middle of December.

The Smithfield was one of the most important shows for the English implement and machine makers to launch new manufactures. For the most important Scottish makers, the Smithfield was a chance for them to bring their manufactures to the attention of the English makers where all the “big” names were in attendance, as well as the English farmers and agriculturists. It was also an important forum for them to extend their reputations and their markets.

The number of Scottish implement and machine makers that attended Smithfield was, however, small. Their attendance reveals a great deal about who were the key players in the Scottish implement and machinery industry, their aspirations and the manufactures that they wanted to promote to the English agriculturist. Their numbers varied from year to year according to whether they had new manufactures and other factors. In 1903 there were six Scottish exhibitors; there were 14 in 1914.

Some of the Scottish makers were regular attenders. they included: Andrew Pollock (later A. & W. Pollock), Machine, J. D. Allan & Sons, Murthly, Thomas Hunter & Sons, Maybole, Alex Jack & Sons, Maybole, Ben Reid & Co, Aberdeen, and John Wallace & Sons Ltd, Glasgow. It is interesting to note how many of them are from Ayrshire.

Because of the limited amount of space at Smithfield, and the expense of taking implements, the Scottish makers exhibited key implements and machines. They also reflected their key manufactures and new productions, as well as improvements to them. They were also ambitious in what they took, as well s the stands that they hired: in 1903 the Scottish farmer reports “Andrew Pollock, Implement Works, Mauchline, Ayrshire, deserves credit and energy and pluck that promoted him to take stand 50, where his wares were on show”.

In 1903 J. & R. Wallace exhibited several of their manure distributors. Andrew Pollock’s manufactures included a cart with hay loader. J. D. Allan exhibited their thistle and bracken cutters. Thomas Hunter had a scarifier, drills, food coolers, hoes and many other implements. Alex Jack had potato-diggers, and manure distributors. ben Reid & co., had manure distributors, cultivators, pumps and other implements. John Wallace & Son Ltd, had “their usual exhibits” which included mowers and reapers, ploughs, potato-difggers and harrows.

All of these implements and machines were intimately associated with these makers. By 1903 they were associated with them. For example, the implements of Alex Jack & Sons were “well known: while John Wallace & Son was “already famed for their agricultural implements”.

We no longer have the Smithfield Show. But if you ask members of the agricultural community and implement makers what they associate December with, they might hjust say “Smithfield” and start reminiscing about the show and going to London.

The photographs of nameplates,, seats eetc were taken at various rallies and events in Scotland in 2014 and 2015.

If you were a farmer or agriculturist looking to buy a new plough in 1899 you would have had a wide selection to draw from. Throughout Scotland, and especially in the eastern agricultural districts there were small makers associated with particular districts, with their ploughs being adapted for particular soil types and types of work. There were also larger makers some of which were located in the market towns, as well as the towns and cities. The prominent makers included A. Newlands & Son, Linlithgow, George Gray, Uddingston, George Sellar & Son, Huntly, Ben Reid & Co., Aberdeen.

In addition to ploughs being made by prominent makers in Scotland, a number of the leading agricultural implement and machine makers were agent for other makers. P. & R. Fleming & Co., Glasgow, was agent for Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies Ltd, Ipswich, as was W. H. Kirkwood, Lothian Bridge, Dalkeith. Milne & MacDonald, Lockerbie, was agents for the Cockshutt Plough Co., North America, as was also Alexander Jack & Sons, Maybole. John Wallace & Sons Ltd, Glasgow, was agent for a wide range of Oliver ploughs.

While ploughs were used for a wide range of purposes, including ordinary ploughing, deep ploughing, and the making of drills, farmers could purchase a range of ploughs for their ordinary work. A. Newlands & Son sold a two horse swing plough for £1 15s as well as a prize swing plough with steel mould board also for £5 15s. George Gray had a range of models of its prize swing plough. Wheel ploughs, more usually associated with English agriculture, were also available with P. & R. Fleming selling a Ransomes’ plough with double wheels for £4 10s or one with a single wheel for £4 5s.

Chill ploughs had gained popularity and were being sold by a number of the implement and machine makers. Wm Storie & Son, Newton St Boswells, sold Ransomes chilled ploughs with wheels and skim coulters (for £4 5s each). Newlands made its own child steel plough with wheel for £4 2s 6d. Probably the most famous of all of the chilled ploughs were those made by Oliver and sold by John Wallace & Sons Ltd, Glasgow. Wallace sold a wide range of these ploughs including Oliver’s long handled chilled plow, Oliver’s lea chilled plow, Oliver’s combination chilled low, Oliver’s chilled plow, Oliver’s large chilled low, with jointer and Oliver’s one horse chilled plow. Other notable chilled ploughs were also imported from Canada: the “Dux” plough made by Cockshutt Plough Co. The most noted importer of the “Dux” ploughs was Alexander Jack & Sons, Maybole, which widely advertised its agency of them in the Scottish agricultural press. Among its range of “Dux” ploughs was “The Dux 96”, selling at £4 2s 6d, the “Dux 96” with double wheels, “The senior Dux”, and “The senior Dux” with skim coulter. Also available were Anglo-American ploughs such as the Anglo American chilled iron plough with two wheels, skim and tail presser sold by Thomas Hunter & Sons, Maybole or the Anglo American plough no 1 sold by George Sellar & Son, Huntly.

Turn wrest ploughs were also available with P. & R. Fleming selling one from Ransomes for £4 12s 6d. Wallace had an Oliver’s turn wrest plow for £4 5s. Double furrow ploughs were also available.

There were also improved features associated with ploughs: we have noted the availability of steel mouldboards; there were steel shares, skim coulters and tail pressers, cutting wheels, and improved coulter fastenings. Reversible points were also available. George Gray, Uddingston, sold a patent “red star” plough with reversible points for £4 2s 6d and a patent “red star” plough with reversible points and two wheels, for £4 10s.

If you were looking to purchase a plough in 1899 you could could choose from ones from a range of makers (most of whom were widely known and renowned by that time) and with a range of designs and features, with important influences from North America.

The photographs show horse ploughing with a Ransomes wheel plough at the Easter Ross ploughing match, October 2015.

A number of the Ayrshire implement and machine makers rose to prominence in Ayrshire, across Scotland and throughout the world for their manufactures. One of them was Thomas Hunter & Sons, Maybole.

Thomas Hunter, a smith, in Maybole, announced his implements in the North British Agriculturist on 8 May 186. By 1883 his business had expanded so that he worked out of the Implement Works, Maybole. He was joined by his sons by 1895, renaming his business from Thomas Hunter to Thomas Hunter & Sons. That name was to continue until April 1914 when the company reorganised and became a company limited by guarantee: Thos. Hunter & Sons (Maybole) Ltd.

Thomas Hunter was an eminent agricultural engineer. In 1893 the North British Agriculturist provided a cameo of him. It states: “Mr Thomas Hunter, of Maybole, has long been one of the best known and most frequent exhibitors of all the leading agricultural shows, not only in Scotland, but also in England and Ireland. Since the death of the late Mr John Kemp, of Messrs Kemp & Nicholson, Stirling, Mr Hunter may be said to be the “father of the Scottish agricultural implement trade”. He was born in Maybole, and bred to the implement trade, which he learned with his father. At the age of sixteen years he set up a business on his own account in Liverpool, and exhibited on two occasions in the Haymarket, Liverpool, at the shows of the “Manchester and Liverpool”, which is now known as the Royal Liverpool, Manchester, and North Lancashire Agricultural Society. As showing the immense progress made by that Society, it may be mentioned that in these early days there were only about half a dozen exhibitors in the implement section at the show. On the death of his father, Mr Hunter returned to Maybole. Mr Hunter has been a regular exhibitor at the Highland Society’s shows for the last forty years, and for a good few of the first of these years his implement exhibits had all to be conveyed by carrier to Glasgow. The principal implements made by Mr Hunter are swing and chilled ploughs, the “triple drill” plough, which opens three drills at a time, and is largely used in the early potato districts; the “Hunter hoe and scarifier”, a most useful appliance in root and potato culture; the Hunter turnip raiser, another most useful implement for lifting the turnip crop, diagonal harrows, drag harrows, rollers, turnip slicers, sheep racks, &c. As showing the appreciation which Mr Hunter’s appliance shave met with at the hands of agriculturists, we may mention that he has been awarded more than 250 gold and silver medals and money prizes at the leading agricultural shows. No better testimonial as to the high quality and great usefulness of the appliances designed and manufactured by him could be desired than that furnished by the unique record which he can show of gold medals and other prizes awarded to his exhibits by the implement judges at the principal agricultural shows. Mr Hunter has an excellent business manner which peculiarly fits him for the work of an implement exhibitor, and in social life he is most genial and well-informed gentleman, whose society is always profitable and agreeable.” The company’s implements included a wide range of cultivating implements. In 1867 they included drill grubbers, horse hoes, drill harrows (for medium or heavy land), land rollers, zig zag harrows (for medium of heavy land), chain harrows (for medium or light land) and a plough with potato raiser. By 1867 the company was also making implements from other makers and patents. They included Tennant’s grubber, one of the most renowned implements of that time, and Dickson’s new patent double patent double drill turnip cleaner, another one.

The company was also an early agent for a number of the renowned English (and also Scottish) makers. In 1871 they included Mellard & Co., Rugelet,and in 1875 W. N. Nicholson & Son, Newark on Trent (for hay makers), R. Tinkler, Penrith (noted churn maker) and G. W. Murray, Banff. By 1899 it was agent for other companies such as John Richardson, Carlisle, Plano Manufacturing Co., London, and J. & F. Howard, Bedford.

As noted by the North British Agriculturist, the company had numerous awards. Those from the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, the national agricultural society, were especially important. They included a silver medal for two patent turnip thinners in 1873, a minor silver medal for its collection in 1875, and a first and second prize (with G. W. Murray & Co., Banff) for a turnip lifter in 1881. The company also entered a number of implements and machines for the Society’s trials, including its trial of seed cleaners (in 1882), a trial of turnip thinners (in 1883), a self-acting double-drill revolving turnip-thinner (in 1886), a trial of manure distributors (in 1894) and a trial of turnip lifters (in 1895).

The company passed a resolution to wind up on 30 May 1921. By 1924 the North British Agriculturist was advertising Hunter’s hoes, but the company was referred to as “Alexr Jack & Sons Ltd, Maybole, proprietors of Thomas Hunter & Sons (Maybole) Ltd. It continued to advertise in the North British Agriculturist until at last May 1934.

Some Hunter hoes bear both the Hunter name and a Jack name. The Hunter hoe secured Hunter’s legacy. A few Hunter hoes can still be seen around the rally fields. When you see one, think about the great legacy of the Hunter name in Scotland and around the world.

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

We all remember the hard work of shawing the turnips or neeps by hand.  It was a cold wet and tiring job. Numb hands and a sharp knife could also make it a dangerous job. And the job could go on for day after day.

In the 1890s the Scottish agricultural implement and machine makers, especially those in the areas where large acreages of neeps were grown, looked at how they could try to remove the drudgery from this work. Some were well-known makers of implements; others were local blacksmiths.  They had the challenge of making an implement that could loosen the neeps from the drills in which they grew, tail them, and also top them.  And neeps didn’t grow evenly in the drill.  Nor did they grow to the same size.

If you were a farmer in Dumfries-shire and were looking to purchase a new threshing mill in 1895 you may have decided that you wanted to view them at the Highland Show which was held in the town of Dumfries in that year.

At the show there were 21 makers of threshing mills with a range of mills on display. A number of the exhibitors were local makers.  They included Andrew Boyd, Noblehill, Dumfries, Thomas Turnbull, Castlebank, Dumfries, and Charlton & Wylie, Dumfries. Further afield, from Ayrshire, were George McCartney & Co., engineers, millwrights and iron founders, Old Cunnock and John Young Jun, Mid Lowes, New Cumnock.  Other Scottish makers included R. G. Morton, Errol Works, Errol, Perthshire, and from Aberdeen the well-known Robert G. Garvie, Hardgate Iron Works, and Ben Reid & Co., Bon Accord Works. Shearer Brothers, Maybank Works, Turriff, had a foot and hand thresher. 

In 1889 Henry Stephens noted that “the part which drainage plays in agriculture can hardly be overestimated. Drainage, natural or artificial, is essential alike for pastoral and arable farming. Upon ill-drained land good farming of any sort is an impossibility.”

Winter was an important time for draining land on the farm.  Drain tiles were made by a number of tile manufacturers throughout Scotland, being a by-product of brick and tile works. Some noted brick and tile works were well-known and even renowned.  In the mid 1840s they included Robert Boyle, tile manufacturer, Ayr.  He exhibited at the Highland Show of 1844 a model of the improved Tweedale patent tile making machine.  By 1848 Alexander Cairns, Denny, Stirling, and George D. Dodds, Airdrie, were both exhibiting their own machines at the Highland Show.  Their numbers were to significantly increase in following years as the drainage revolution gathered apace on Scottish farms.

By this time a number of implement and machine makers were making draining tools.  Amongst the most important was William Cadell and Sons and Co., Cramond Iron Works.  Associated technologies also developed, such as the need for ploughs to assist in the draining work.  In 1848 George Ponton, Grougfoot was making a plough for filling in drains.

A century later the face of drainage on Scottish farms and on marginal land had changed dramatically.  If Scotland had led the way in the drainage revolution with James Smith of Deanston, it continued that innovation into the 1950s.  While there were a number of implement and machine makers in England that provided drainge implements and machines, including mole drainers, cultivators and trenchers, one Scottish maker came to have a great reputation: James A. Cuthbertson Ltd, Station Road, Biggar, Lanarkshire.

By 1952 James A. Cuthbertson Ltd manufactured a range of drainage tackle including a tractor drawn trench cutter suitable for tiles, pipes or cable laying, a trench cutter, Type F, suitable for plantation work, a Type S, double sided mouldboard tough , suitable for moorland draining and afforestation and sugar cultivation, the Type R, double sided ridging plough, designed for sisal grass plantations and ground preparation for cotton, groundnuts, and a hydraulically operated grab for use with the “Atlas” loader for ditch cleaning.

The company won a number of important awards for its drainage machinery including a silver medal from the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society for its drainage plough in 1948, another for its deep drainage plough with tile-laying attachment in 1950.  The company was also noted for its land improvement machinery including its bracken cutter which won a silver medal in 1949.  It entered other machines for the new implement award of the RHASS In 1948, including the grassland rejuvenator and lime spreader, its double-purpose double furrow forestry planting plough in 1949 and its lime-spreading outfit in 1951. It also developed the “Cuthbertson” half-track for Fordson Major conversion.  For his innovative work James A. Cuthbertson won an OBE in the New Year’s Honours list in 18953.

The company was eager to demonstrate its machinery.  James undertook a series of talks on farming and the agricultural engineer on marginal land in 1949.  The company widely demonstrated its machinery.  In June 1951 it advertised in the Courtier and Advertiser that it “will shortly have a hill drainage machine in the Milnathort/Dollar district.  Ground is inspected and quotations given free.”  In that month, another was on the ground in the Duns district of Berwickshire.

Scotland played an important role in the drainage revolution of the mid nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  However, you won’t see many aspects of that revolution at the rallies around Scotland.

For a comprehensive account of draining in 1889 see Henry Stephens, The Book of the Farm https://archive.org/stream/cu31924000275838#page/n295/mode/2up

© 2016 Heather Holmes

Preparing food for livestock was, and still is, an important job over the winter months.  Hay had to be cut from stacks, or silage taken from clamps. Turnips were to be sliced or pulped, though livestock could also be put onto fields to eat the crop straight off it.  Broke tatties were taken from the dresser and sometimes cut up as well.

The cutting, slicing and pulping of turnips were important jobs, especially for young livestock that did not have fully formed teeth.  In Scotland turnip cutters or slicers were especially favoured.  Some designs were used for many decades: the lever turnip cutters or lever ball turnip cutters of the 1860s were still found on farms after the Second World War.  They comprised a cast iron frame with bars through which a turnip was forced and sliced when a lever with a weight came down on top of the turnip.

By the mid 1870s the most important implement and machine makers in Scotland were making their own turnip slicers.  They included Robert Peddie & Co., Tynecastle Iron Works, Edinburgh, Andrew Pollock, Mauchline, Ben Reid & Co., Bon Accord Works, Aberdeen, John Wallace & Sons, Graham Square, Glasgow, Wingate & Lowe, Alloa, G. W Murray & Co., Banff Foundry, Banff, P. & R. Fleming & Co., 29 Argyle Street, Glasgow, Alexander Jack & Sons, Maybole, Kemp, Murray & Nicholson, Stirling, and A. & J. Main & Co., Scott Street, Port Dundas, Glasgow.

Most of their slicers were inexpensive.  In 1875 Alexander Jack & Sons sold lever turnip slicers for £2 2s.  Some models, such as one sold by P. & R. Fleming, sold for as much as £4.  Their designs varied so that they cut up the turnips into different sizes, and for either cattle or sheep.  There were also “improved” models, such as those sold by Ben Reid & Co.  By the mid 1870s some of the English makers were also designing, making and selling more complex machines.  They were ones that came to be renowned for their food preparing machines not only in England, but were also widely used by Scottish farmers: Harrison, McGregor & Co., Albion Foundry, Leigh, Manchester, Samuelston & Co., Britannia Works, Banbury, Picksley, Sims & Company Limited, Bedford Foundry, Leigh, Lancashire and Richard Hornsby & Sons, Spittlegate Iron Works, Grantham.  Their machines included double action turnip cutters as well as treble action turnip cutters.  But there was one design that was especially important: that of Gardener’s turnip cutter or Gardener’s patent turnip cutter.  It was already well used and renowned in the 1840s.

By the 1870s makers, such as Picksley, Sims & Company Ltd, were manufacturing turnip cutters in the “style” of Gardener’s turnip cutter.  Even by the outbreak of the First World War that machine was still being made and sold.  For example, A. & J. Main & Co. Ltd,
Edinburgh, was selling “Gardner’s sheep patent turnip cutter” for £5 10s.  The use of new forms on motive power on farms helped to improve designs and make the tasks of cutting, slicing and pulping turnips easier to undertake.  In 1914, John Wallace & Sons Ltd, Glasgow, was selling Mackenzie’s patent portable turnip cutter, with motor (an Amanco engine), for the sum of £31 10s.  Kenneth MacKenzie of Evanton, Ross-shire, was to become well-known for his turnip cutters and potato sorters.  Even at that time, the majority of machines continued to be manually worked ones, and were on wheels.

Their character was to change significantly.  By the outbreak of the Second World War most of the turnip slicers that were exhibited at the Royal Highland Show were fitted with engines.  Most of the turnip slicers at the Show in 1939 were fitted with engines: those by Harrison, McGregor & Co. Ltd, James H. Steele, Edinburgh, Barclay, Ross & Hutchison Ltd, Aberdeen, Bamfords Ltd, Uttoxeter, E. H. Bentall & Co. Ltd, Gillies & Henderson, Edinburgh, George Henderson Ltd, Edinburgh and Kelso, and William Elder & Sons Ltd, Berwick on Tweed. Later, they were powered by electricity.

The photographs were taken at the New Deer Show, 2014, and at Daviot vintage rally, October 2016.

© 2016 Heather Holmes

One of the big names in root cutters was Kenneth McKenzie of Evanton, Ross-shire, later Kenneth McKenzie & Sons, Evanton.

Kenneth was already a smith and farrier in 1903.  In 1922 he is recorded in trade directories as an agricultural engineer, a mechanical engineer, a motor engineer and a smith.  By 1955 he is denoted as an agricultural engineer, implement, machinery and equipment manufacturer and as a tractor and implement dealer.