Ferguson Family Museum:

Harry Ferguson giving a demonstration of one of his ploughs, somewhere near Coventry. Can anyone identify just where, from the buildings in the background?

It was our good fortune last week, on a short visit to the Isle of Wight, to pay a visit to the Ferguson Family Museum near Freshwater. This is based on the Ferguson Family Organic Farm where it occupies an outbuilding.

The museum, which is only open to the public by appointment, records the life of Harry Ferguson in photographs and papers that have been collected by the family and looked after by Peter Warr, its curator. There is also a good amount of memorabilia including a number of Ferguson vehicles.

As you almost certainly know, Ferguson, who was born in what is now Northern Ireland, was a serial entrepreneur who cut his engineering teeth by building and flying the first plane to be flown by an Irishman. He later developed Tractors and agricultural implements with Ford and, notably the Standard Motor Company. In later life he specialised in developing Four Wheel drive systems for Road cars and racing cars.

Peter describes how he was recruited by Harry Ferguson in 1950 at Abbotswood, the Ferguson country estate near Stow on the Wold. where he was looking for a job as a groundsman. Harry asked him what salary he expected, so he chanced his arm and asked for £5 per week. Mr Ferguson offered him £4, 10s and Peter subsequently spent all his life working for Ferguson.

Peter soon became involved in demonstrating Ferguson Tractors and farm equipment to potential customers and dignitaries that visited Abbotswood, where he became a trusted Personal Assistant to Mr Ferguson. He talks lucidly of working in the Ferguson company and demonstrating equipment to many visitors, including Prince Philip. Peter has built up an encyclopaedic knowledge of Mr Ferguson and his projects over the years and is a mine of Information.

If you would like a visit to a fascinating museum, which is made all that more interesting and entertaining by the vast knowledge and enthusiasm of it curator, then your journey will be well rewarded, as was ours. Peter gives a personal guided tour to every visitor. The museum is not signposted nor is it advertised widely, and is very rurally located. There is more information on this website and you must make a personal appointment to attend, and ask for directions. The Lymington to Yarmouth Ferry is most convenient. Please allow sufficient time to find it.

http://www.ferguson-museum.co.uk

This larger scale demonstration involves a number of tractors, drivers and their dogs, and is thought to have been taken in Scotland. Most of the Fergies have full weather equipment and are assisted by a Phase1 Vanguard Ferguson system Van.

Story by Phil Homer

Photographs courtesy of the Ferguson Museum

August 2010