Harry Ferguson

Harry Ferguson. Sculpture in the Harry Ferguson Memorial Garden, Growell, County Down, Northern Ireland.

Henry George "Harry" Ferguson (born November 4, 1884 in Growell, County Down , Northern Ireland , † October 25, 1960 in Stow-on-the-Wold , County Gloucestershire , England) was an Irish engineer and inventor.

Life

Harry Ferguson grew up with eight siblings on their parents' farm in Dromore, Northern Ireland . His older brother Joe ran a workshop in Belfast , where Harry Ferguson trained as a mechanic from 1900 to 1903 . Initially he mainly dealt with motorcycles, later also with automobiles. He became interested in aviation at the University of Belfast . In 1908, Ferguson constructed his own aircraft that was equipped with a JAP engine. During a flight attempt on December 31, 1909, Ferguson covered a distance of 120 meters with its construction while flying. She was the first airplane to be moved on the island of Ireland, and Ferguson was the first Briton to fly a self-constructed airplane.

In 1911 Ferguson founded May Street Motors (later: Harry Ferguson Ltd.) in Belfast . The workshop initially dealt with agricultural implements: Ferguson constructed plows and the like. Ferguson became famous for the Belfast , a wheelless plow that could be connected to a tractor. 1916 was a first Ferguson tractor , which on the mechanics of a Ford Model T based.

Ferguson tractors

After the end of the First World War , Ferguson was primarily engaged in the design of tractors that had unique hydraulics. Ferguson tractors were initially produced by Coventry Climax , and then by David Brown in the 1930s . In 1937 the alliance with Brown broke up and Harry Ferguson moved to the USA. Ford produced the Ford Ferguson N9 tractors there until 1945. The cooperation with Ford broke up when Henry Ford II stopped the production of agricultural equipment in 1945. This was followed by a long-term legal dispute that did not end until 1952.

After World War II , Ferguson returned to Great Britain. The Standard Motor Company in Coventry produced its tractors in large series from 1946. 1953 Ferguson merged his company with the company Massey-Harris to "Massey Harris Ferguson". Since 1958 the company traded under the name Massey Ferguson .

1950 Harry Ferguson founded with Freddie Dixon and Tony Rolt the company Ferguson Research , the basic research in the following years to four-wheel drive conducted. In order to document the performance and, above all, the traction strength of a four-wheel drive vehicle, Ferguson constructed the P99, a racing car that competed in several races in the 1960 World Cup . Stirling Moss won a side race that did not count towards the World Championship: the Oulton Park Gold Cup Race , which was held in heavy rain. Ferguson Research (later: FF Developments) developed all-wheel drive systems for passenger cars in the 1960s. The Jensen FF equipped with a Ferguson system was the first mass-produced passenger car with all-wheel drive.

In his honor, the Ferguson Ridge has been named after him since 1983 , a mountain ridge in Grahamland on the Antarctic Peninsula .

literature

• Gordon R. Pennock: Henry George (Harry) Ferguson (1884-1960) , in: Marco Ceccarelli (Ed.), Distinguished Figures in Mechanism and Machine Science, Volume 2, Springer 2010, pp. 65-94
• Mike Tylor: Best Feet Four-Ward . In: Classic and Sports Car , issue 6/2012, p. 138 ff .; Harry Ferguson biography

Web links

Commons : Harry Ferguson  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• ferguson-museum.co.uk
• tractor.wikia.com
• ulsterhistory.co.uk
• mysciencecareer.ie
• irelandseye.com

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Harry Ferguson . In: Der Spiegel . No. 48 , 1960 ( online - In Memoriam).
2. ↑ The history of the company "Massey Ferguson" . ( Memento of the original from February 28, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
3. ↑ news.google.com