Wherever fields are ploughed, wherever farmers haul heavy loads, the Ferguson name will be honoured. Kieran Fagan marks the passing of a tractor legend
A large slice of enginering history came to an end one morning last month when the last component for a Massey Ferguson tractor came off the Coventry production line at 4 a.m.
The 100-acre site had produced three million tractors for farmers around the world for over 56 years.
There's probably a Fergie tractor standing in the corner of a farmyard near you - or there was when you were growing up in rural Ireland, England, Wales (the Welsh say Fergi when they mean tractor), the US, Canada or Australia.
There are generations who, when you say Fergie, don't automatically think of that pleasant plump young woman who once lined out with Britain's royal family.
Harry Ferguson, from Dromore, Co Down, was to agriculture what Henry Ford, with whom he later joined forces, was to motoring. In Jonathan Swift's words, he "could make two ears of corn, or two blades of grass, to grow upon a spot of ground where only one grew before, would deserve better of mankind, and do more essential service to his country, than the whole race of politicians put together."
There was one big problem with tractors before Harry Ferguson came along. They were too heavy and too unstable, as were the ploughs they pulled. Ferguson's hitch allowed them to counterbalance each other. It gave both greater stability without the weight which had previously bogged them down.
(A more technical explanation resembles the "Schleswig-Holstein question" which only three people understood - one was dead, one was mad, and the other had forgotten.)
Every tractor on the market today owes much to the Ferguson system. And every farmer and consumer owes much to the almost forgotten Irishman who radically improved agricultural productivity, which is only a posh way of saying producing more food.
Harry Ferguson, born in 1884, was a farmer's son. He disliked the drudgery of life on the farm at Dromore and turned to things mechancial. In 1909, just six years after Orville and Wilbur Wright's first flight at Kitty Hawk, South Carolina, Ferguson flew solo from Dundrum to Newcastle, Co Down, in a plane which he had designed and built. Harry's wife, we are told, later put an end to his aeronautical antics.
While still in his teens he entered his brother Joe's car repair business in Belfast as an apprentice. In 1911 he opened his own car business in May Street, Belfast, later moving to Donegall Square East (look for the plaque on the Ulster Bank building).
He began to sell American tractors. However, finding them heavy and dangerous to operate, he designed and built a new plough which was coupled to the tractor in, first, two- then three-point linkage, so that both formed a single lighter unit. The Ferguson System, patented in 1926, revolutionised farming.
In 1936 he started manufacturing his own tractors, but three years later - with just a a handshake - he entered into partnership with Henry Ford and more than 300,000 of the new Ford Ferguson tractors were made. The handshake wasn't enough to sustain a relationship with Ford's grandson and the partnership broke up in acrimony in 1947.
Ferguson went on to design a light-weight tractor, the "Wee Fergie", which was assembled by the Standard Motor Company of Coventry.
Standard had the distinction of beating off strong competition to become known as one of the worst car manufacturers in Britain. (Coventry's Motor Museum is refreshingly candid on some of Standard's shortcomings - its account of the steering geometry of the 1950s Vanguard saloon should have given rise to lawsuits.).
Nevertheless, Standard did well by Ferguson, and about half a million of "Wee Fergies" were made.
A later partnership, with Massey-Harris of Toronto proved difficult. It fell to Massey Ferguson's successor, Agco, the third largest tractor maker in the world, to write the final chapter in Ferguson tractor history last month in Coventry.
The most ardent fan would have to conclude that Harry Ferguson was not the easiest business partner in the world. But his story doesn't end with the closure of an assembly line, devastating though that must have been for over a thousand who lost their jobs.
The best commemorations of Harry are in the rallies of Fergie fans held all over the world. Fans celebrate, among others, the Fergie which played a central role in Sir Edmund Hillery's expedition to the South Pole in 1954. According to official records, "a single Ferguson tractor had worked for 565 hours without the need to replace a single spare part in the extreme cold temperatures of the Antarctic. During this time the tractor remained outside for twelve months without any protection from the weather, whilst it helped to build the Antarctic station at Mawson."
In the little town of Bendemeer in New South Wales, farmer Winston Doak decided to throw a party for his "Grey Fergie" on its 50th birthday earlier this year. He invited all the other "Grey Fergies" in Australia to come.
Some 154 Fergies turned up for Winston's bash and filled Bendy's main street. It was the largest gathering of Fergies in Australia. Doubtless folk singer Peter Pentland shifted a few copies of his sensitively crafted tribute CD, Me beaut little Fergie tractor.
Now there's a lasting legacy for you.