How tractors changed England’s green and pleasant land

Tractors were starting to appear in rural Britain at around the same time as cameras, and while it was questionable which were the greater novelty, there was no doubt that photographers were drawn to this new way of working the land. As these rare pictures attest, they have been favourite subjects ever since.
Two trainloads of new agricultural tractors ready to leave the factory, England, 17th October 1939. The tractors are being produced at a car factory, and production is linked to the British government's wartime 'Grow More Food' campaign. (Photo by Harry Todd/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)Two trainloads of new agricultural tractors ready to leave the factory, England, 17th October 1939. The tractors are being produced at a car factory, and production is linked to the British government's wartime 'Grow More Food' campaign. (Photo by Harry Todd/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Two trainloads of new agricultural tractors ready to leave the factory, England, 17th October 1939. The tractors are being produced at a car factory, and production is linked to the British government's wartime 'Grow More Food' campaign. (Photo by Harry Todd/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

The first lightweight petrol tractors, before the turn of the last century, were crude affairs, and it was not until the First World War, with the arrival of machines from America, that their effect on the everyday lives of agricultural workers began to be felt.

Even so, in an age before industrial farming, the early models were too unreliable, inefficient and, above all, expensive for all but the most ambitious landowners – and it was not until the 1930s that they were able to reap the benefits of design improvements and cheaper processes.

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By the build-up to the Second World War, the first production tractors could be seen on farms. These used the three-point hitch system of attaching ploughs and other implements that had been introduced by the Irish-born but British-based mechanic and inventor, Harry Ferguson.

7th September 1939:  Recruits to the Women's Land Army learning to drive a tractor plough on a farm in Kent.  (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)7th September 1939:  Recruits to the Women's Land Army learning to drive a tractor plough on a farm in Kent.  (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)
7th September 1939: Recruits to the Women's Land Army learning to drive a tractor plough on a farm in Kent. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

His legacy was not limited to agriculture – he was the first person in Ireland to build and fly his own aeroplane, and the first to develop a four-wheel drive Formula One car. But it is his hydraulic tractor system, still in use today, that stands as his most enduring innovation.

Mechanised agricultural machinery was at one time as important to Yorkshire’s urban economy as to its farming landscape. From 1955 until 1982, the American company International Harvester manufactured tractors at Five Lane Ends, Bradford, on a site where a branch of Morrisons now stands. In its first 10 years alone, some 100,000 machines were built there.

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6th August 1940:  A line of tractors driven by trainees at the Oxford Institute of Agricultural Engineering. The Ministry of Agriculture has begun training boys between school-leaving and military ages, as well as several classes for agricultural workers.  (Photo by William Vanderson/Fox Photos/Getty Images)6th August 1940:  A line of tractors driven by trainees at the Oxford Institute of Agricultural Engineering. The Ministry of Agriculture has begun training boys between school-leaving and military ages, as well as several classes for agricultural workers.  (Photo by William Vanderson/Fox Photos/Getty Images)
6th August 1940: A line of tractors driven by trainees at the Oxford Institute of Agricultural Engineering. The Ministry of Agriculture has begun training boys between school-leaving and military ages, as well as several classes for agricultural workers. (Photo by William Vanderson/Fox Photos/Getty Images)

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