Tip your Irish cap to Harry Ferguson

In the village of Dromore, County Down, Northern Ireland, there “stands a sculpture that digs into the collective memory of those of us who grew up in the Irish countryside,” so wrote the town historian in 1992. 

“The scene it sets is that of a farmer looking out into a field over a gate, lost in his own thoughts…laying his protective eyes over his crops or animals. However, this sculpture is not a tribute to an ‘ordinary’ farmer but, rather, to an extraordinary one,” said Harold Gibson, who served for a time as chair of Dromore’s local historical group. 

The farmer – Harry Ferguson – is “one of Ireland’s most fondly remembered engineers. His inventions changed Ireland, and indeed the world, and his surname became synonymous with farming and agricultural machinery” that was branded as Massey Ferguson. 

The bronze statue, sculpted by John Sherlock of Limerick, Ireland, welcomes visitors to the Harry Ferguson Memorial Garden in Dromore.

Gibson said: “Harry Ferguson was born in 1884 near Dromore, the son of a farmer, and he grew up…mechanically minded,” capable of fixing farm machinery.” 

Ferguson was captivated by the flying accomplishments of Orville and Wilbur Wright in North Carolina on Dec. 17, 1903. Harry and brother Joe built Ireland’s first airplane, and Harry flew it at a grassy field in Hillsborough Park near Belfast on Dec. 31, 1909. 

The Belfast Telegraph reported: “As Mr. Ferguson advanced the lever, the aeroplane rose into the air at a height from nine to 12 feet, amidst the heavy cheers of the onlookers. Mr. Ferguson made a splendid flight of 130 yards.” 

(In comparison, Orville Wright’s initial flight six years prior on the sands at Kitty Hawk reached an altitude of 20 feet and covered 120 yards. When Wilbur Wright took his turn behind the throttle on the same day, he flew the plane a distance of 852 yards.) 

Harry Ferguson was hired by the Irish Board of Agriculture in 1919 to take a look at how farm production methods might be improved by introducing more efficient machinery. 

Ferguson saw “the limitations of having a tractor and a plough as two separate machines and endeavored to engineer a way to rigidly attach them, creating one machine from two,” Gibson noted. 

Ferguson’s invention of the “three-point hitch” revolutionized the farming equipment industry, and in 1925, he patented a hydraulic version that could be attached to other tractor models as well as his own. 

Henry Ford welcomed Harry Ferguson in 1938 as a partner in a joint venture that sought to combine Ford’s mass assembly technology with Ferguson’s engineering genius. 

It worked swimmingly at first, but the relationship soured when Henry Ford II, 28, grandson of the founder, took control of Ford in 1945. Ford gave Ferguson the boot. Ferguson set up his own tractor factory, and began cranking out tractors that were affectionately labeled as “little grey Fergies.” 

Ferguson also filed legal action against Ford, alleging patent infringement. Finally, in 1952, Ferguson received a hefty $9.25 million settlement from Ford. (That computes to about $90.73 million in today’s dollars). 

Now, with a comfortable nest egg tucked away, Ferguson executed one more business deal. He merged his Ferguson tractor business with Massey-Harris, a major tractor producer, in 1953. The new company would be based in Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Ferguson bowed out in 1954.

The mystique of “Little Grey Fergie” lives on for new generations, fueled by the writings of Norwegian Morten Myklebust in his series of children’s books.