Well it's time for me to contribute to this excellent "family tractor" thread.

I have waited a while in hope that many more North American, Canadian and other Massey Collectors around the world would add their memories and old family photo's here, especially as the thread has developed it is now more than just Massey-Harris.

This first post of mine is really where I put the blame for my 50 plus years now of M-H addiction and collecting. In 1935 my Grandad Robinson was persuaded by his two very young boys (my dad and uncle) to purchase his first ever new tractor and plough, Grandad always said the tractor 'would never replace his Shire horse', so begrudgingly he ordered a new M-H 12-20 and No 23 two furrow plough from Ward and Co of Horncastle, they were ironmongers and agents for M-H horse implements and spares.

This new tractor and plough arrived by train in Horncastle from Manchester, grandad and dad went to town in the old car with a can of petrol and 5 gallons of parrafin, they saw the outfit unloaded from the railcar in Horncastle Station, one of Ward's employees was there to oversee the operation and help grandad and dad get the tractor going, it was on steel wheels with roadbands fitted and once they were fuelled up, filled with water, engine oil checked the tractor was started and at 11 years of age it was dads delight to drive the outfit back to their farm, quite a journey of approx 12 miles, but a great adventure for a very young boy, much better than being at school !!!

This is the first phtotgraph of the 12-20 at work on the farm, driven by local young farm hand Dick Hardwick, he looked a proud young driver, you can just see the M-H 23 plough lever in the background.
Also photo's of Ward and Co adverts and a postcard of their ironmongers shop in the part of Horncastle town called "The Bull Ring".
The last photo is their warehouse behind the ironmongers shop, down 'Bank Street', this building still stands today and some of you have had the pleasure of seeing this on our 'Massey Tours'.

Malcolm.


 

Moving now considerably back in time to pre M-H tractor days here is an old photo from Canada.  It shows my great Uncle Jim's brother Cyril ploughing with 4 horses on the prairies at Broadview Saskatchewan, Canada in about 1909.  Given that it is remote Canada it might be fair to assume that it is an M-H plough that the horse team is pulling because M-H was the major supplier of agricultural implements to the deep interior of Canada along with household goods and barn equipment.  Broadview is fairly near to Winnipeg and Regina.
John

As the Second World War came on in 1939 the Royal Air Force compulsary purchased a large part of my grandfathers farm for the construction of an air base for Lancaster Bombers, so the four year old M-H 12-20 was not used to it's potential. As the airbase grew and came into use a search light was positioned on the farm, here gallons of petrol were stored in jerry cans to run the search light, the air crew staying in my grandparents house would keep the tractor and family car tanks full of petrol, apparently it was coloured with dye of all colours for identification, but no one ever stopped them to check, they almost had a free pass over the entire airfield. They even wanted dad to go with them in a Lancaster on a raid to Germany, he did decline that one.
It was 1994 when they decided to leave and move to Salmonby House Farm, 500 acres with a lot more potential, the 12-20 on steels was not the tractor for moving everything, so some local "Concientious Objectors" farmed with a new three wheel rowcrop Fordson on rubber tyres which they loaned dad to transport everything from Holton Beckering to Salmonby, the only thing dad liked about it was it's high speed top gear, a lot faster for road work than the M-H.
Once they were settled in Salmonby House Farm a further two 12-20's were bought at local farm sales, so the fleet expanded in the mid 1940's and the original new 12-20 was treated to a new rubber wheel conversion set purchased from an advert in The Farmers Weekly magazine.
Here are photos of dad on the tractor and grandad on the binder in 'the long field' at Salmonby, with the increase in acreage they bought a new M-H No 16 PTO driven binder and that's  the one seen in these photo's, I can remember using it at some early harvesting get togethers in the early 1970's.

Malcolm.


 

Incredible stories and photos that you gentlemen from the UK have to share. I've not really found anything in the family archives here that pre-dates the 1950's. 

John and Malcolm, thank you both for sharing.

Cheers,

JB

Thanks John,

We continue to keep digging here in the UK not only our family archives, but also the M-H history and dealers in most towns years ago, now they are just names which many of them are now gone and forgotten, it's truely amazing what does keep surfacing.

To continue our M-H family tractors journey before I head of into other makes from different eras, the most photographed of the three M-H 12-20's was my dads favourite tractor, the one he drove new when he was 11 years old, so here it is belted up to the threshing machine made locally in Lincoln by William Foster Ltd, this was new in 1924 and up to the M-H tractor arriving it had been driven by a steam engine. To everyones amazement the 'old steam hands in the threshing crew" admitted the M-H tractor governed far better than the steam engine, so the 12-20 did a lot of belt work even when more modern tractors were taking care of a large part of the field work.

Malcolm.

 

Good over size tyres on your Dad's 12-20 Malcolm.  I've never seen them that wide before

Here's a different sort of tractor - a Gravely single wheel model D that used to be my Dads. They were made firstly in Verginia then moved to Wisconsin.  He bought it second hand from the local council soon after he got married and started farming on his own at the beginning of the war.  It was started with a pull of a leather strap wrapped round the pulley and was always a good starter.  He used it for cultivating/weeding between cabbage rows before he was able to buy a Ferguson... He worked acres of cabbage and cauliflower with it to good effect.  The photo shows it fitted with cultivating lesg but it also had a ridging plougn (a lister to you folke maybe?) for earthing them up as they grew  Along with this tractor he also purchased as a job lot a 2 wheel Gravely model L which had a front mounted rotary plough.  But he never used this and sold it on.  In my youth I wanted to buy it back but could never find it again.   I well recall that when he started up to walk it to the field in the morning I would walk with him to the field then run back home and go off to school.
John

Moving forward to the later 1940's my dad on the left of the first photo remained a staunch M-H supporter and determined to keep the three, now older M-H 12-20's running. My uncle on the right of the photo veered away from  the older M-H U frame and new later M-H series tractors and became a Fordson man. so there was a mix of M-H and Fordson now at Salmonby House Farm.
The next photo shows the new late 1940's Fordson E27N on rubber tyres fitted with wheel strakes, again pulling the binder at harvest time. For some reason the old 'box camera' only seemed to come out on sunny and warm days.

Malcolm.

Here's another shot of an M-H binder in action.  It is taken in war time and shows my great uncle Ben operating the binder and his daughter Muriel driving the styled red Pacemaker tractor.  This tractor I now own having bought it from his retirement sale in about 1966 still in running order.  The crop looks a bit thin - maybe war time fertiliser shortage?  Note the cast iron front and rear wheels in contrast to the spoked French and Hetch wheels of N American Pacemaker tracrors which gave them considerably more lugging power.  Before she died about 10 years ago Muriel came to see me with her sister and two two nieces and inpect her old tractor - she was dleighted that it is still in the family
John

Now moving onto the more modern era, leaving the old petrol / TVO tractors behind the decision was made to buy two new Nuffield diesel tractors, in 1959 the Universal Three came along and the Universal Four in 1960.
The Universal Four is seen here soon after it was delivered in th harevst field, both tractors are pulling the first combine harvesters used on the farm and they were International Harvester B64 models.
Both these tractors are still here in Salmonby today.

 

Here is what I consider to be a very historically informative photo on several accounts.  It shows my great uncle Ben in the white shirt loading sheaves on to an old iron wheel horse trailer converted to tractor use.  A tractor drawbar has been fixed to the original horse shaft affixing points resulting in a very incorrect angle from tractor drawbar to trailer - it should slope the opposite way to enable the tractor to have better traction.  My father similarly modified some horse trailers but with much lower hitching points resulting in a slightly upward slope from trailer to tractor.  The trailer thuis pulled down on to the tractor - weight tarnsfer in its prime!

Ben is loading the sheaves along with 4 of his workers who were German and Italian prisoners of war.  In world war 2 prisoners were distributed to work in various industries around the country including farming.  The UK government would provide them with the basic necessities of life including where necessary suitable accomodation - in this case Ben had a spare cottage on the farm whereas my grandfather who had 2 prisoners was provided with a robust wooden shed for them to live in.  I still remember them - Frank and George who were highly thought of by our family.

Anyway back to Ben and his 4 men - 1 loading with him and 2 stacking the sheaves on the trailer.  The trailer is pulled by an unstyled M-H Pacemaker tractor driven by Ben's eldest daughter Muriel who did a lot of tractor driving for him in the war years.  Note that sheaves can be seen having been hung to dry on a wire so it must have been a very wet summer.  One of the men pulling the sheaves off the wire.

The sheaves were loade and handled on the trailer with 2 prong pitchforks or pickles - what do you call them in N America?

Harvest was certainly harder work in the old days compared with the modern way of sitting in an air conditioned cab on a combine harvester with air filtration!  Maybe progress?  Maybe not?  No social interaction or exercise..........

John