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PRESS INFORMATION: HISTORIC PLOUGHS RETURN TO MK |
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Issue Date: 21 July 2004 Ref: MKM04/01 Historic ploughing equipment designed in North Buckinghamshire that helped to revolutionise farming in the 19th century has returned to the area to become part of the collection at Milton Keynes Museum. The items include some of the earliest known examples of steam ploughing equipment anywhere in the world and were designed by William Smith of Woolstone, now part of Milton Keynes. They arrived Milton Keynes Museum on Wednesday 21 July from their previous home at the Museum of English Rural Life in Reading. |
William Smith came from a local farming family that had lived at Church Farm at Little Woolstone since 1637. He was born in 1814 and took charge of the family’s other farms, in Woughton and
Linford, by the age of 14. When his father died in 1837 he inherited the estate and took over control of Church Farm. He took a keen interest in the mechanisation of farming and came up with the idea of a steam powered plough in the 1850s. He was convinced that a mechanised plough would be more efficient than a horse-drawn implement and would do less harm to the soil because it would not be compacted by the horses as they walked across the field. This in turn would provide better growing conditions for the crops. One of the main advantages of the Smith design over contemporary steam ploughing equipment was that a single steam engine was required when others required two. This meant the overall cost was lower. The equipment was a great success and hundreds of sets of the steam ploughs, winding drums and cables were sold all over the country and many were sent overseas. Smith’s first designs were manufactured by Fowlers of Leeds and Ransomes of Ipswich but production was soon transferred to Howards of Bedford. All were among the leading agricultural equipment manufacturers of their time but Howards was much closer to the Smith farms. Although there were many advantages of the Smith ploughing equipment in the end it was the two-engine design from manufacturers such as Fowler that became the more widely used. This may be because the Smith equipment was more cumbersome to use in the field. |
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Milton Keynes Museum preserves the history of Britain's newest city. The Museum is located at an authentic Victorian farm, built in the late 1840s on the outskirts of Wolverton, one of the UK's original "railway towns", and now part of Milton Keynes. Its large and constantly changing selection of displays have something for all the family. Collections include social, domestic, industrial and agricultural items with a connection to the area. The displays follow the history of the Milton Keynes area, including North Buckinghamshire and South Northamptonshire, from 1800 to the present day. During this period the area changed greatly, culminating in the decision in the 1960s to create the UK's last "new city" of Milton Keynes. To arrange media photo opportunities, please contact Bill Griffiths at the Museum. For further press information please contact:
Bill Griffiths, Museum Director. or
Keith Wootton, Public Relations Consultant |
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