y 



v<>^*- 



THE FAKMER'S MAGAZINE, 



JANUARY, 1858. 



rORTRAlT 



PLATE I. 

 OF MR. RICHARD 



HORNSBY, 



PLATE II, 

 TWO LABOURERS' COTTAGES. 



(For description see page 81 J 



MR. RICHARD HORNSBY, 



AGRICULTURAL ENGINEER, OF SPITTLEGATE WORKS, GRANTHAM, LINCOLNSHIRE. 



If undeviating integrity, earnestness of intention, 

 and a thorough knowledge of his profession should 

 bring success, Mr. Hornsby has surely earned his 

 reward. One is at a loss which to admire the more, 

 the genuine straight-forward character of the man 

 himself, or the excellence of those inventions with 

 which his name is identified. But, after all, one 

 is only the reflection of the other. We see in the 

 good, sound, dural)le machinery that Ilornsby and 

 Sons send out, how the spirit of the master-mind 

 has been employed upon them. From him the 

 whole works take their tone. There shall be no- 

 thing here but what is honestly fitted for its pur- 

 pose. Turning neither to the right nor the left, 

 uninfluenced by any other consideration, the aim 

 of the House has been to supply the farmer with 

 those implements really best adapted for his use. 

 This is now, and indeed has long been, well known ; 

 and we but echo the opinion of the whole country 

 when we say, there are no people with whom a man 

 can deal with more confidence than with the 

 Hornsby's of Grantham. 



This firm has now been established as that of 

 Hornsby alone something like thirty years. It owes 

 its origin and gradual development to the man 

 whose portrait here occupies so worthy a place in 

 our Images. Much as the business and repute of 

 the house have increased of late years, under the 

 careful direction of his eldest son, it was Richard 

 Hornsby himself who not only commenced, but 

 estabhshed it. Like many other good men before 

 him, who have honestly risen to eminence, we trace 

 him back to small beginnings — the road-side 

 foundry — the master-man, busy at the forge — the 

 gradual extension from one department to another 

 until many hundreds have to look to him for their 

 sustenance ; and the town he entered a com- 

 parative stranger, points to him and his as its 

 pride and boast. 



The county, however, haa an equal claim to him. 



OLD SERIES.] 



Mr. Hornsby is both Lincolnshire born and bred. 

 We have to go so far back as the summer of 1790 

 for the time of his birth — on rather a memorable 

 day at that period, being no other than the fourth 

 of June, the birth-day of good King George him- 

 self. The Hornsbys then farmed at Elsham, near 

 Brigg, where the son continued until his fifteenth 

 year. He was at best but a delicate boy ;a nd, 

 much against his friends' inclination, who would 

 have preferred his adopting some less laborious 

 pursuit, bound himself apprentice, in 1805, to Mr. 

 Havercroft, a wheelwright at Barnetby-le-Wold, 

 His new master shared the fears of his own rela- 

 tions as to his ever being able enough for such 

 work, remarking, on first seeing him, that " he 

 looked far more like filling a coffin than making 

 one." The choice, however, was a good one. The 

 pursuit agreed with him, and in five years' time he 

 left Barnetby a hale, hearty man, 



Mr. Hornsby turned his steps towards Gran- 

 tham, where he quickly engaged himself with one 

 Mr. Seaman, of the Spittle or Hospital Gate. The 

 latter had discrimination enough to appreciate the 

 value of his young workman. On the first of 

 January, 1815, a business was opened under the 

 title of " Seaman and Hornsby, Makers of Horse 

 Thrashing Machines, &c.. &c." The firm pros- 

 pered, and in eleven years from this time we find 

 Mr. Hornsby entering into a partnership of a yet 

 more agreeable character. In a word, his marriage 

 further settled him as a Grantham man, while but 

 two years more found him with the works alto- 

 gether under his own control. In the December 

 of 1S'2«. ^Tr. Seaman retired with a competency, 

 and the bua^ness was known henceforth as that of 

 Hornsby's solely. 



The success of the House may be dated from this 



period. It was in Mr. Hornsby's hands that the 



trade gradually extended, and its repute propor- 



tionably increased. It was under his immediate 



B [VOL. XLVIII.— No. 1. 



