In the March 2021 edition of Farm Contractor, Mike Williams wrote a Whatever Happened To… piece about the Ferguson Black tractor.
This was later published on our website, but in the years since the original publication, the original prototype tractor has returned to Northern Ireland from the Science Museum in London, taking its place at the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum.
The Ferguson Black was notable for its inclusion of the three-point hydraulic linkage, which was patented in 1925, titled “Apparatus for Coupling Agricultural Implements to Tractors and Automatically Regulating the Depth of Work”, in Belfast.
It would be perfected in 1935 in the fields of Tullylagan Manor outside Cookstown, County Tyrone which was owned by Thomas MacGregor Greer.
The system would then join the mass market with the little grey Ford-Ferguson tractor in 1939; the result of a gentleman’s agreement between Harry Ferguson and Henry Ford. More than 300,000 were built between 1939 and 1947.
A special plaque was unveiled by Steven Patterson to mark the centenary of the patent. Steven is currently campaigning for a Harry Ferguson Museum of Innovation.
