80 



THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 



The British 



iTBCTI I 



TRACTOR. 



Tha "OVERTIME" Tractor H tha maohln* thai hotels tha 

 ftrltlan County Championship against all oemars. took at 

 theao nguraai Bast day'a work, i3 Boraai bast waafc, Siaeras; 

 total for tha month, 18«J aorast at houra wara foal in travelling. 

 The avaraga alia of tha flalda wara about ia aoraa. 



PRESENT PRICE : 



£292 5s. Od. 



Don't Wait! Now is the time to purchase. 



FULL PARTICULARS FROM THE 80LE ACtNTBi 



WILLIS & SON, 



THE CENTRAL GARAGE, DEVIZES. 



Advertisement for the 'Overtime' tractor, published in 

 Devizes Gazette, 16 May 1918 



The smaller 16 H.P. tractor, the 'Kid-Kangaroo', 

 weighed 2/4 tons and was demonstrated with a three 

 furrow plough. It took 1 Vi to 2 hours to plough an 

 acre. 53 



Milking machines also existed and their 

 numbers increased during the war. But they were 

 still relatively rare and only economic on the larger 

 farms. There was some prejudice against them by 

 some farmers such as Samuel Tucker of Holt who, 

 although he used a machine, claimed that the cheese 

 was not so good as from hand milking. 54 In 

 February 1915 White's of Devizes were advertising 

 Lister milking machines and one was bought by 

 Arthur Stratton for £146 4s. 55 Another 

 advertisement for the Wallace milking machine 

 included testimonials from W.G.Willis of Overtown 

 House, Wroughton, and T. Edwards of Barton 

 Farm, Marlborough. Other satisfied owners were 

 said to be: WGauntlett of Grafton, H.Horton of 

 Costow Farm, Wroughton, H.D.Cole of 

 Broomsgrove, Pewsey, E.Maidment of Oare and 

 B. Davis of St. Martin, Zeals. 5 ' 1 



The large-scale introduction of tractors in 1917- 

 18 was organised by central government and was 

 run locally by the Agricultural Executive 

 Committees. Over this period the government 

 ordered £4.7 million worth of tractors, mainly from 

 America including 6,000 Fordson tractors, 3,750 



Oliver ploughs and 2,632 Titan tractors 

 (International Harvester Co.). There were particular 

 problems in getting delivery of the Fordsons which 

 did not come in any quantity until 1918. The 

 government started mainly with Titans and Moguls. 

 But by the end of the war 26 models were on the 

 market, although the government concentrated on 

 just six: Titan, Overtime, Clayton and Shuttleworth 

 (caterpillar), Saunderson, 25 H.P. Mogul and 

 Fordson. The Executive Committees also recruited 

 skilled drivers and ploughmen so that complete 

 teams could be deployed across the county. The 

 committees could also take over and use privately 

 owned tractors although it was agreed that these 

 would be returned to the owners by 1 May for their 

 own use. 57 A trial of the 16 H.P. Mogul pulling a 

 Canadian Cockshutt 3-furrow plough was reported. 

 It ran at a speed of 3 m.p.h. and used 2Vz gallons of 

 paraffin per acre. Normally it could plough 5 acres 

 a day but in ideal conditions it could manage 3 A 

 acre per hour. Three caterpillar ploughs, lent by the 

 Russian government, were also tried in Wiltshire 

 but these proved to be unsuccessful and were 

 returned. Much better was the Bullock Creeping 

 Grip tractor (a type of caterpillar) which had come 

 from America. 58 



The organisation of the Wiltshire teams was 

 undertaken by Ernest Willis of the Central Garage, 

 Devizes who was about to take up a commission in 

 the tractor company of the A.S.C. but who was 

 diverted to this new task. In March 1917 

 advertisements were placed in the local press for 

 drivers of motor tractors for ploughing, either full- 

 time or part-time, working 8-hour shifts. The first 

 sign of the arrival of the government tractors in 

 Wiltshire was a report to the War Agricultural 

 Committee in February 1917 that two motor 



Royal Medal Milking Machines 



THE BEST BRITISH-MADE MACHINE ON' THE MAMffiT. 



IT CANNOT 



OVF.KM1I.K- 



PLftBTB IWTtLLSO 



aaoHH? lorioi 



InlODdln J customer* 



to m* ftnj plant 



Over lQO Machines spld in Wiltshire since October, 1914. 



Advertisement for the 'Wallace' milking machine, 

 published in Devizes Gazette, 18 Feb 1915 



