Scottish agricultural implement makers

One of the renowned tattle planters from the time of the First World War was the two row “Richmond” potato planter, made by John Wallace & Sons, Paton Street, Dennistoun, Glasgow.

In 1915 the planter sold at £15 15s; a single row machine, costing £15, was also fitted with an artificial manure distributor.

One of the makers of sowing machines in north-east Scotland was George W. Murray & Co., Banff Foundry, Banff.

In 1868 the company exhibited a one horse corn drill and a two horse corn drill at the Highland Show.  In 1870 its sowing machines included a small sized corn drill, a medium sized corn drill, a combined land roller and grass seed sower as well as a turnip sowing machine.  A few years later in 1877 they included a turnip and mangold sower, hand seed drill, and a broadcast sowing machine. 

© 2016 Heather Holmes

Reekie is a name that has been intimately associated with tatties for since the mid 1940s: tattle sorters, graders, brushing machines, bed tillers, and stone and clod separators to name a few machines.

Reekie Engineering Co. Ltd, was incorporated as a company limited by guarantee in 1946.  By 30 August 1946 it was advertising its manufactures in the Farming News where it was to be a regular advertiser in following decades. Its works were at Lochlands Works, Arbroath.  By the early 1960s the company had premises at Arbroath, Forfar and Laurencekirk.  In 1868 it had premises at Station Road, Inverurie. 

If you were in Lanarkshire you would have known the name of County Garage (Lanark) Ltd at Hyndford Road, Lanark.

The company started business in 1928 and continued until 1975.  By 1934 it was a Fordson dealer, retraining that agency into the 1970s. In 1955 it was also an agent for David Brown tractors.

Drill scarifying was an important part of turnip culture in the days before weedkillers were available.  Drill scarifiers were largely used for paring away the sides of drills to destroy weeks and bring the drills into the intending form, leaving less work for the hand-hoe.

Drill scarifiers were made by a number of implement and machine makers in Scotland.  They included Alex Ballach & Sons, Alex Jack & Sons Ltd, A. & J. Main & Co. Ltd, Thomas Hunter & Sons. J. & R. Wallace, H. W. Mathers & Sons, John Wallace & Sons Ltd, Bon Accord Engineering Co Ltd, and Charles Weir. 

One of the well-known agricultural machinery dealers in eastern Scotland was Gillies & Henderson of Edinburgh.

Gillies & Henderson opened its business at Munro Place, Canonmills, Edinburgh, in 1920. Shortly afterwards it moved to premises at 59 Bread Street.  It was associated with Bread Street for many years. By 1940 it also had premises at 254 Leith Walk.  Major changes came in 1961 when it became a company limited by guarantee and moved to the newly established Sighthill Industrial Estate, where other agricultural implement and machine makers were also conducting their businesses. 

© 2016 Heather Holmes

One name known in the north of Scotland from the 1850s onwards was James McKidd, Thurso, Caithness.  By 1870 he was associated with the Thurso Foundry.

By 1858 James was recorded as a millwright.  He continued that trade until at least 1909.  By the 1870s he was also an iron founder and a mechanical engineer, trades he continued in following years.  By 1883 he also described himself as an agricultural implement maker, and specialised in making cornmills and thrashing machines. 

Back in 1912 if you were looking for a turnip, mangold or carrot sower you could have purchased one from a number of the agricultural implement and machinery makers in Scotland.  By that time some of these companies were well-known makers: Alex Ballach & Sons, A. Newlands & Son, Alex Jack & Sons Ltd, Thomas Hunter & Sons, John Doe Ltd, J. D. Allan & Sons, and Kemp & Nicholson.

If you wanted one from Alex Ballach & Sons, you could have purchased an improved turnip sower with disc coulters for £6 15s, or one with ordinary coulters at £6 10s.  A Newlands turnip sower was £6 and a Kemp & Nicholson two row turnip and mangold sower £6 10s. 

If you were a farmer in the vicinity of Glasgow into the 1950s and you were looking for a range of implements and machines, you might have looked to see what P. & R. Fleming had in stock.

The company was already established by 1844 when it described itself as “P. & R. Fleming, iron merchants and ironmongers, 29 Argyll Street and 18 Stockwell Street, Glasgow.”  By 1864 the company had expanded its activities, and recorded itself as “ironmongers, iron merchants, smiths, gas fitters, bell hangers, wire fence and gate manufacturers, and agricultural implement warehouse”.  That expansion continued.  In 1894-95 it is recorded as “P. & R. Fleming & Co., ironmongers, iron merchants, smiths, gas fitters, bell hangers, wire fence and gate manufacturers and agricultural implement makers, warehouses, 29 Argyle Street; iron warehouse, 18 and 24 Stockwell Street, Glasgow; 16 Graham Square, Glasgow; branch establishment, 1 Dowanhill Place, Patrick; works, Kelvin Street, Partick”.  In 1937 it had addresses at Graham square, Glasgow, and at stand 106D of the Edinburgh Market.  An address in 1870 was for it at the Clydesdale Iron Works, Possilpark, Glasgow.  Its business was wound up in 1983.

The company started its long practice of attending the Highland Show in 1867.  It was an annual exhiitor for many years after the Second World War.  It receeived a minor silver medal for its collection of implements and machinery in 1875.  It was also a regular advertiser in the Scottish agricultural press.

Among its implements and machines that it manufactured at the Clydesdale Iron Works at the turn of the twentieth century was its potato and charlock sprayer and its patent rick lifter, horse pole fork, rick lifter, grapple forks and spear forks.  It was also well known for supplying ironwork for a variety of construction projects.

As well as making its own range of agricultural implements and machines, it was also an extensive agent.  In 1910 it held agencies for some of the major companies such as R. Hornsby & Sons Ltd, Grantham, Lawrence-kennedy, Glasgow, Gregg & Co., Belfast, Harrison, McGregor & Co., Ltd, Leigh, Ransome, Sims & Jefferies Ltd, Ipswich, and Martin’s Cultivator Co., Stamford.

In 1910 a farmer could purchase a wide range of implements and machines, including oil engines, cow milking machines, grinding mills, thrashing mills, potato sprayers, sheep dipping apparatus, patent thistle and bracken cutters, rick lifters, horse forks, hay collectors, binders, mowers, reapers and mowers, cultivators, ploughs, garden tools, lawn mowers and dairy utensils.

If you needed it, Fleming had it.  If you were in Edinburgh, you would go to James H. Steele, which had the strapline “Everything for the farm”.  But the two companies had one man in common: James H. Steele.  James had been in the employment of P. & R. Fleming until September 1916 as a representative in Edinburgh and the East.  Steele brought Fleming’s business East and allowed the Edinburgh and east of Scotland farmers to have their own farming emporium.

The photograph was taken at the Scottish National Tractor Show, Lanark, September 2014.

© 2016 Heather Holmes

By the late 1880s, the American implement and machine makers had developed the very ingenious hand broadcast sowers.  One was brought into England by Mr J. H. Newton, West Derby, Liverpool.  It comprised “a light box of thin wood is carried under the left arm with a strap over the shoulder.  To the top part of this is attached a canvas receptacle for the seed, while on front and below is fixed a little tinned iron wheel, or rather four crossed pieces revolving on a spindle.  Round this spindle is passed a thong which forms the string of a bow, and by “see-sawing” this bow the wheel revolves in alternate directions.  An eccentric on the spindle moves a little hopper which heeps a regular stream of seed falling on to the revolving “wheel” and this in its turn sends the grain spinning out all round.  It will cover a width of about 30 feet, but some have found it best in practice to go up the centre of one rig and down another, thus taking 14 or 16 feet at a time.  It is thus possible, if kept supplied with seed, to do four acres per hour, while three is easy of attainment.  To ensure an ever braid, the machine should be carried in a level position. It sows all kinds of grain admirably, and is equally well adapted for sowing dry artificial manure. The quantity to be sown per acre is regulated by a little slide.” 

© 2016 Heather Holmes