An old Ferguson tractor is located on the grounds of the city farm De Korenmaat, which the children can play on.
"History of Ferguson
The model name came from Tractor, England 20 horsepower[1] (not the true power delivered but from a formula based on engine size).
TE range of Ferguson tractors was introduced in England in 1946,[2] following 30 years of continuous development of "The Ferguson System" from 1916. The first work was to design a plough and linkage to integrate the tractor with its work in a manner that was an engineering whole. The automatic control system is now employed by almost all tractor manufacturers worldwide. A British patent was applied for by Harry Ferguson in 1925 and granted the following year.
By the early 1930s, the linkage design was finalised and is now adopted as international standard category I. Just one prototype Ferguson System tractor, known as the Ferguson Black, was built to further technical development and for demonstrating to potential manufacturers. During 1936, the first production Ferguson tractors were built in Huddersfield, Yorkshire, by the David Brown Company. That tractor, the Ferguson Model A, incorporated Harry Ferguson's "suction side" hydraulic control system, the key to solving sensitive automatic control of three-point mounted implements, patented on 5 February 1936 (patent no 470069). The combination of Ferguson's converging three-point hitch, patented on 3 July 1928 (patent no 320084) with his "suction side control" valve is the key to the success of all subsequent Ferguson and later Massey Ferguson "Ferguson System" tractors, the most important of which are the TE and TO 20 models. (It was the production of the Model A that led to the David Brown line of tractors in 1939).[3]
In order to get volume production with lower costs, following a demonstration of his tractor before Henry Ford Senior in October 1938, Ferguson made a gentlemen's agreement with Ford, also referred to as the handshake agreement, to produce the Ferguson tractor in Detroit starting in mid-1939. Officially called the Ford Tractor Ferguson System they are more commonly known as the Ford-Ferguson.[citation needed] . The first Ford-Ferguson 9N (for 1939 model N) tractors arrived in the United Kingdom in October, 1939 and thousands would be imported to help with food production during the War. In 1942 due to material shortages after the USA entry into the War the model was updated to the 2N (for 1942 model N). About 300,000 of these tractors, known as "Ford-Fergusons", were produced up to 30 June 1947.
An English Ford-Ferguson in Suffolk Ford 9N
Ferguson tractor at an orange orchard at Palinyewah, New South Wales, Australia
During the war years, the Ferguson design team developed many improvements to both tractor and implements and started to make arrangements to manufacture in the United Kingdom. The agreement with Ford in 1938 was to include production at the Ford plant at Dagenham, Essex, but the UK Ford company would not do it.[4] By 1945, Ferguson had made a manufacturing agreement with the Standard Motor Company of Coventry to produce a Ferguson tractor incorporating all their latest improvements and to be known as the TE20. As well as allowing Ferguson to get his tractor into full production, the deal was of great benefit to Standard, because the tractor would be built in its huge "shadow factory" which had been an aero engine plant during World War II but was then standing empty. Standard developed a new wet-liner engine for the tractor, and for Standard's road cars, such as the Vanguard.
Production started in the late summer of 1946, nearly a year before the last Ford Ferguson came off the line in Detroit in June 1947. The break with Ford left Harry Ferguson and his US company with implements to sell but no tractors. To make up the gap until the new Ferguson factory in Detroit started in October 1948, more than 25,000 Coventry-built TE20s were shipped to the US and Canada. The TO (Tractor Overseas) 20 was virtually the same as the TE20 with a Continental engine Z-126 fitted instead of the Standard engine.
At the time of its introduction the Ferguson three-point linkage was unique to the TE20, and to gain the full utility of the tractor the farmer also had to purchase specially-designed implements to work with the tractor. Ferguson initially designed and manufactured a range of implements for the TE20 in-house, but as the tractor's popularity spread other manufacturers began designing their own machinery for the TE20 in agricultural, industrial, construction and horticultural applications. The idea that the three-point linkage made the tractor and its implement into a single mechanised unit was marketed as 'The Ferguson System', presenting a wholly new and entirely mechanised form of agriculture. By 1950 there were over 60 official Ferguson implements for the TE20, many of which had not been seen in mechanised tractor-mounted form before. As well as basic implements such as ploughs, harrows and cultivators, the range included a number of trailers and loaders, seed drills, a side-mounted baler, a very rare 'wraparound' combine harvester, a muck spreader, a sickle mower and a powered auger. With its power take-off, the tractor could also drive stand-alone equipment, such as pumps, milking machinery or circular saws, by belt or driveshaft.
Ferguson became well known for its effective and distinctive advertising, intended to demonstrate the abilities of the TE-20 tractor to farmers who previously had used only draft horses and had little experience with mechanised equipment. Public demonstrations of Ferguson tractors and implements were held throughout rural Britain towards the end of the harvest season. A typical demonstration involved fencing off an area 27 by 20 ft (8.2 by 6.1 m) and using a cultivator-equipped TE-20 to till the complete area - such an area was too small to be worked by a horse or a drawbar-equipped tractor of the time. Advertising also emphasised that in the 'Ferguson System' the tractor was not merely a replacement for the horse but, via its linkage and shaft-drive power take-off, it could mechanise dozens of agricultural tasks previously performed either by separate machines, unwieldy drawbar-mounted trailed equipment, or manual labour.
The TE and TO 20 tractors were so revolutionary that Ferguson set up a training school in the grounds of Stoneleigh Abbey, close to the Banner Lane factory. There, Ferguson dealers, salesmen and engineers were trained on the new machines they would be working on, and courses were also run for farmers to learn how to most effectively operate the tractors and the various implements.
Coventry production up to 1956 was 517,651 units, with about 66% being exported, mainly to Continental Europe and the British Empire, but to many other countries as well. To the above figure must be added TO production at Ferguson Park, Detroit. Including all 'Ferguson System' tractors from May 1936 to July 1956 brings the figure to approximately 1 million.[citation needed]
Harry Ferguson merged his worldwide companies with Massey-Harris of Toronto in July 1953, three years before TE and TO20 production ended, hence the change of name on the serial plate to 'Massey-Harris-Ferguson'. The Ferguson 35 replaced the old line in the US in 1955 and the TE20 in the UK in 1956; production in the UK starting in September of that year following re-tooling of the factory. Harry Ferguson remained Chairman of Massey Harris Ferguson until 1957, when he left over an argument over the Ferguson TE60 or LTX project as it is known. He continued his hobby of motor racing and set up Harry Ferguson Research, which produced the P99 Race car, which won the Oulton Park Gold Cup in 1961 with Stirling Moss at the wheel.
Harry Ferguson later helped the development of the 4-wheel-drive system which was used in the Land Rover and the Jensen interceptor FF (Ferguson Formula) even though he had already made vehicles with a 4-wheel-drive system much earlier.
Harry Ferguson died on 25 October 1960 at his home (Abbotswood, Stow on the Wold), due to a barbiturate overdose; it was never established if it was deliberate or not."
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