Harry Ferguson

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

Life and work

Harry Ferguson grew up with eight siblings on the family farm in Northern Ireland Dromore. His older brother Joe operation in Belfast a workshop in which Harry Ferguson 1900 to 1903 trained as a mechanic. Initially, he was concerned here mainly with motorcycles, and later with automobiles. At the University Belfast, he began to take an interest in aviation. 1908 Ferguson designed his own airplane, which was equipped with a JAP engine. In a test flight on December 31, 1909 presented Ferguson with his design flying a distance of 120 meters back. She was the first aircraft to be moved to the island of Ireland, and Ferguson was the first Briton, who flew a self-constructed plane.

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

After the end of World War I. Ferguson was primarily concerned with the construction of tractors, which had a unique hydraulic system. The Ferguson tractors were initially Coventry Climax, then produced in the 1930s by David Brown. 1937 broke the alliance with Brown, and Harry Ferguson moved to the United States. There, Ford produced until 1945, the Ford -Ferguson tractors N9. The collaboration with Ford broke when Henry Ford II in 1945 stopped production of agricultural implements. There followed a long-standing dispute which in 1952 came to an end.

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

Founded in 1950, Harry Ferguson, along with Freddie Dixon and Tony Rolt, the company Ferguson Research, the basic research conducted in the following years for all-wheel drive. To document the performance and especially the traction strength of a four-wheel drive vehicle, designed the Ferguson P99, a race car, who took to some races of the Formula 1 1960 season. Stirling Moss won him a not for the World Cup scoring race side: the Oulton Park Gold Cup Race, which was held in heavy rain. Ferguson Research (later FF Developments ) developed in the 1960s, four-wheel drive systems for passenger cars. Equipped with a Ferguson System Jensen FF was the first series-produced passenger car with four-wheel drive.