The Centenary of the Ferguson Master Patent
Guest Article by Stevan Patterson, Castlederg Co. Tyrone
2025 is a very special year in the story of the tractor and agriculture in general as it marks the centenary of a patent filed by Harry Ferguson at Belfast on the 12th February, 1925. Titled “Apparatus for Coupling Agricultural Implements to Tractors and Automatically Regulating the Depth of Work under patent number 253,566. Known as the Ferguson Master Patent, the patent is the actual invention of the modern tractor with quickly interchangeable implements and automatic depth control. Before this invention no one in history had thought of the tractor as unit with implements that could be quickly changed. Tractors just replaced the horse to pull a plough or harrows by chain.
Harry Ferguson’s revolutionary vision was that the tractor and specially designed implements directly attached would be a mechanised farming solution. His intent was such that his new method to farm was going to not just change the tractor but by bettering people’s lives through reducing hunger and poverty he was going to shape humanity itself. This was evident when he deliberately filled the complete patent specification on the 11th November, 1925, Armistice Day. By bettering lives his hope was to end conflicts and wars.
Ideas envisioned in the Ferguson Master patent would become a practical reality in the autumn of 1935 when his Ferguson Belfast Black Prototype tractor that he and his engineers assembled in Belfast from 1931 to 1933 was perfected in County Tyrone at the home of Thomas MacGregor Greer who put up most of the Ferguson System development costs of £156,000 Pounds.
The introduction in 1936 of the production version of the Ferguson Belfast Black Prototype tractor, the Ferguson-Brown Type A built by David Brown in Huddersfield would put the Ferguson System on the market.
A century since the invention of the modern tractor and ninety years since its perfection with Ferguson System, his inventions did indeed revolutionise agriculture. Today, every tractor uses technology pioneered by Harry Ferguson and this is worthy of celebration.
His invention allowed farmers to grow more food more cheaply leading to a huge rise in living standards, reducing hunger and poverty across the globe. 65 years since Harry Ferguson passed away in 1960, he is rightfully known as the father of the modern tractor and the man who helped feed the world.
Only Northern Ireland can claim it’s the home of the modern tractor.
With such an important legacy, I have been campaigning for a Harry Ferguson Museum of Innovation to tell his life story and the life stories of the many great innovators and achievers from Northern Ireland.
Biography
Stevan Patterson from Castlederg Co. Tyrone is an industrial heritage author and historian writing under the name Stevan D T Patterson. He has written extensively about tractors, cars, engines and machinery having recently completed his 400th booklet.
Stevan has been campaigning for almost 40 years for a Harry Ferguson Museum of Innovation in Northern Ireland and currently has a petition running calling for Gordon Lyons MLA, the Minister for Communities to found and fund the museum.
He believes the currently unused but historic St. Lucia Barracks in Omagh, the County town of Tyrone, would make a wonderful location for the museum as the Ferguson System was perfected in the County in 1935. The museum will tell the life story of Harry Ferguson and although named after our best-known innovator it will also honour all the other great innovators and achievers from every walk of life in Northern Ireland. As well as being a museum it will be a centre for innovation and research with state of art facilities to support and motivate current and future innovators and achievers.
Guest Article by Stevan Patterson