Milestones

Year	Information
1884	November 4th, born Henry George at Lake House, Growell, Dromore, Co Down. He was the fourth of eleven children. Showed mechanical aptitude at an early age.
1898	Aged 14 years. Leaves school to work on his father's farm where he came to hate the toil of farm work.
1902	Aged 18 years. Harry Ferguson goes to Belfast to serve an apprenticeship in the motor business at his brother Joe's workshop on the Shankill Road.
1904	Harry Ferguson competes in motorcycle events to obtain publicity for the Ferguson car and motor-cycle business.
1903-5	Attends classes at Belfast Technical College and there meets John Lloyd Williams who is to become the only intimate friend he had and in fact retained. While working in brother Joe's workshop he meets T McGregor Greer from Tullylagan between Cookstown and Dungannon and becomes a family friend.
1908	Harry Ferguson goes with John Williams to air meeting at Rheims and Blackpool where he becomes interested in the aviation industry.
1909	(December) Ferguson takes a plane built by himself to Lord Downshire's estate at Hillsborough and on flying a distance of 130 yards becomes the first Briton to build and fly his own aircraft.
1910	(April) Ferguson takes his plane to Massereene Park, Co. Antrim and after a few attempts manages a flight of just over one mile. Later in the year made a three mile flight to win an aviation prize.
1911	Harry Ferguson forms his own business known as May Street Motors and he employs John Williams and Willie Sands who had served his apprenticeship in the maintenance of machinery in the linen industry.
1912	May Street Motors becomes Harry Ferguson LTD> Ferguson takes a great interest in and competes in motor races.
1913	Harry Ferguson marries Maureen Watson whose family own a grocery shop in Dromore. 1913 is the year in which Harry Ferguson really started inventing by trying to improve carburettors - two ideas were patented
1913-14	Harry becomes involved in UVF activities and helps distribute arms brought into Larne Harbour on the arms ship Mountjoy II. John Williams joins Royal Flying Corps on the outbreak of war. Ferguson starts to sell Overtime tractors brought in from America.
1914-17	Ferguson and Sands get the reputation of being expert ploughmen after giving countless demonstrations of the Overtime tractor pulling a Cockshutt plough.
1917	(March 19) Ferguson and Sands by direction of the Irish board of Agriculture are given the job of travelling all over Ireland to improve the efficiency of tractors and ploughs so that more acres of land can be used to increase food production during the war.
1918	Sands develops a plough to fit a Fordson tractor using a Duplex hitch.
1920	Willie Sands leaves Harry Ferguson to set up business on his own account at Lisburn Road. Archie Greer becomes Harry Ferguson's chief helper.
1921	Ferguson and Greer go to Ford Tractor plant at Cork to carry out tests using a Fordson tractor. Patrick Hennesy who was later to become chairman of Ford of Britain was the man sent to assist them.
1922	(May) Ferguson and John Williams go to Bucyrus, Ohio and agree with a John Shunk that he should produce 50.000 ploughs for use with Fordson tractors. (June) The job for Shunk is so great that he decides not to go ahead and Ferguson gets Roderick lean to make his ploughs in Mansfield, Ohio.
1923	Willie Sands returns to Harry Ferguson and immediately starts to develop the plough further.
1924	Ferguson develops further his interests in motor-racing. Lean goes bankrupt.
1925	A company called Ferguson-Sherman Incorporated is set up to manufacture ploughs in Evansville, New York State. The patent known as draft control is applied for on February 12th.
1926	The patent is approved in June.
1928	Sands leaves Ferguson and purchases a Bean bus for use in public transport. Fordson tractor goes out of production.Ferguson establishes a major road race in Ulster. Discussions with Allis Chalmers, Rover and Ransomes about the possibility of building a tractor incorporating his principles come to nothing.
1929	Ferguson decides to build a tractor incorporating his linkage patent and plough.
1931	John Chambers and Trevor Knox join the design side of Ferguson's activities.
1932	Ferguson, Sands and Greer start making sketches of their ideas for a tractor.
1933	The Black Tractor is built and ready for testing. Parts of it had been made by the David Brown CO.
1934	Ferguson persuades David Brown to manufacture the Black tractor.
1935	Ferguson changes Harry Ferguson Ltd. in Belfast to Harry Ferguson (Motors) Ltd and forms Harry Ferguson Ltd with McGregor Greer and John Williams to market the Brown-Ferguson tractor.
1936	(May) The Brown-Ferguson as it was first known is shown to the public.(June) The first tractor (No 12) is sold to John Chambers' father. Bob Annet, a farmer’s son, is employed to set up a training school.
1937	(June) Ferguson Brown Ltd as a company is formed. Ferguson Brown tractors well received in the hilly stony lands of Scotland and Norway.
1938	(October) Harry Ferguson and John Williams go to America and take a Ferguson-Brown tractor and implements to show to Henry Ford. An agreement (known as the handshake agreement) is reached whereby Ford agree to manufacture a tractor for Ferguson and it became known as the Ford-Ferguson. Central PTO patent granted.
1939	(January) 1,200 tractors had been made by David Brown for Ferguson and sold. (April 1st) The Ford-Ferguson prototype is ready and tested. (June) The first mass produced Ford-Fergusons are ready for marketing. (July) David Brown has made and is ready to market his own tractor to be known as the VAK1. (October 12th) Ferguson having just returned from America and having brought with him a Ford-Ferguson and implements gives a demonstration at Greenmount Agricultural College to Ministry officials including Sir Basil Brooke, the then Minister of Agriculture.
1940	John Williams who had joined the Royal Air Force on the outbreak of a war is killed in a car crash with a stationary lorry. Ford Ferguson demonstrated in Bedfordshire, UK.
1942	Steel shortage threatens production of Ford Ferguson tractors.
1939-45	Ford-Ferguson tractors are manufactured and sold from America.
1945	Ferguson gets Trevor Knox to return to Britain to explore the possibilities of Ferguson tractors being manufactured there. (July) Ferguson has a meeting with the Ministry of Finance at Stormont with a view that his tractors be mass produced in Northern Ireland. (September) Ferguson has a meeting with Sir John Black, chairman of the Standard Motor Company and they agreed that the old Standard Motor Company premises at Banner Lane, Coventry, which had been used as an ammunition factory during the war, be used for production of the Ferguson tractor which was known as the TE 20.
1946	Production of Ferguson TE tractors starts at Coventry, England. Engineering department gives priority to development of a big Ferguson tractor known as the LTX which was built and tested by the time of the merger with Massey-Harris.
1946	Ford established new company called Dearborn Motor Corporation in place of Harry Ferguson Incorporated and severed the link with Ferguson.
1947	(July) Ford announces the introduction of a new tractor, the Ford 8N (known in Ireland as the Ford Minor) incorporating Ferguson System hydraulics. (November) Harry Ferguson goes to America to see for himself what is happening and decides on December 11th to take legal action against Ford for dishonouring their agreement and producing a tractor of his own fitted with Ferguson system hydraulics and linkage. End of Ford ferguson tractor production.
1948	(January) The legal battle between Ford and Ferguson which was to last for four years and cost millions begins. Ferguson TO tractor production starts at Detroit, USA.
1950	Ferguson has lunch with Winston Churchill. Churchill describes him as a remarkable man.
1952	(April) Ferguson settles with Ford and receives damages totalling 9.2 million dollars with certain other conditions. Negotiations with James Duncan, the chairman of Massey-Harris start regarding a possible merger.
1953	(August 4th) Ferguson merges with Massey-Harris and forms Massey-Harris -Ferguson which becomes the world's largest manufacturer of agricultural tractors and machinery.
1954	Ferguson sells his interest in the company to the other directors for approximately 3.75 million pounds. Production of Ferguson TO 35 tractor starts in USA.
1956	End of TE Ferguson tractor production at Coventry. Massey-Harris-Ferguson introduce a new British tractor designed in America called the Ferguson 35 in preference to the British designed Ferguson TE 60. Ferguson TO 40 tractor introduced in USA
1958	Massey-Harris- Ferguson becomes known world-wide as Massey Ferguson - the name it still retains. Production of the MF 65 tractor starts in Coventry, UK.
1959-60	Ferguson involved in racing car design and considers a return to tractor design.
1960	(October 25th) Harry Ferguson is found dead at his home Abbotswood. He was aged 76 years.