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I also consider the proposed band is too narrow, at a stroke you would exclude a wide range of vintage horticultural tractors that although 8-10 HP have capacity over 700cc being multi cylinder
such as Newman, Kendal, David Brown 2D, Byron, President, OTA, Singer Monarch and Kent Pony.
From my own experience it does not work to plough with a single furrow in the same class as Ferguson tractors because you are very hard pressed to complete your plot in time .

Surely the definition should be that the tractor was designed and marketed as using a single furrow plough to be in the Horticultural Class but by all means split the class between ride on and pedestrian if you want.
Vintage ploughing should be enjoyable, the working events at Bingham many years ago which led to the formation of the VHGMC were great fun and what a wide selection of machines took part

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Have you tried Classic Tractor Books, Mr Stephen Moate
Website http://www.classictractors.co.uk, tel 01377 270209

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I think the oil companies were keen to promote there lubricants for use in machines and offered attractive deals to manufacturers. Mr Fred Brookes co founder of OTA told me Castrol supplied the OTA brass makers plate with lubricants listed on it together with all necessary lubricants for each new tractor for 6d (2.5 new pence).This was a help to manufacturers in keeping costs down in a competitive market.
I also saw the Vigzol cabinet and thought it must be rare compared to the usual Castrol ones and it would a difficult choice depending on a detailed inspection to restore or rub over with oily rag to retain originality. I tend to lean to keeping it original if possible but even if oil is still inside external rust can lead to finding a pool of oil underneath one day particularly if moved. A few cans or pouring jugs always look nice around the shed and use always keeps that oily layer to preserve them.
Lets hope it goes to a good home.

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No doubt sewage treatment has developed since the Ransome MG based sand skimmers reached the end of there working lives but it seems there is still a need for filter bed sand skimmers and one machine is the skimmer based on a Morrish crawler built in Devon.
You could say it is the “grandson” of the Ransomes based unit but with a 3 cylinder kubota engine and hydrostatic drive to the rubber tracks and required attachments as shown on the attached photograph.
Morrish also produce bespoke green salad harvesters for use in the intensive salad industry in this country.
I realise Morrish crawlers may not be vintage but early ones are 30 years old now

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Thank you for your assistance
I had a thought and contacted Jim Wilkie, he told me the Chippenham Club was one of the NVTEC regional clubs but folded about 20 years ago, but he did not remember anybody of that name or the publication

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I was sorry to see that you were parting with your collection and more so to read it was due to ill health.
However I think you can look back with pride to the Ransomes MG display you organised at Tractor World, a real master class in how to put on a display.
The article in the Cultivator by Patrick Knight together with the extra items added by the Editor was first class , in fact the whole publication was a very good read and a tribute to the editor and contributors at a very difficult time starved of normal public events.

Were the Whitlock Bros produced W8 shovel and W4 loader machines based on a ransome mg skid unit a development of the Ransomes ITC machine or seperately development by Whitlock ?
I am sure if you could find the time to tell the story of your MG with the back actor and how you traced the french firm who had manufactured them to meet a requirement in France.
I suppose it was to avoid import duties and to keep it competitive that the Ransomes MG French agent seemed to develop attachments to suit the French market like the hinged rear cultivator lifted by a cable drum on the pto shown on the attached advertisement

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Thanks for your response, it is quite surprising how many of these early makers developed and Cambridge moved to Bristol because of transport links and he was selling his products to overseas.

I had always thought the Cambridge roll took its name from where the design had originated like the Essex wagon.
I have another cast roll end made by Alexanders of the Corrinium Iron Works Cirencester, I obtained a copy of a sales catalogue from Reading and discovered they produced all manner of steam powered equipment including stationary engines and traction engines and yet you never see them mentioned in magazines or see surviving machines.I never think of Cirencester as a industrial area but when we had a empire you realise the market it gave to British Industry and the references to “colonial pattern” in catalogues.

The pandemic is a miserable time and I have missed the events and social interaction but I suppose like many others I have taken the opportunity to have a good sort out, progress with that restoration, do a bit of research and look forward that 2021 will be better and some interesting machines will emerge on completion.

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Funnily enough opened up my sunday newspaper and there is a article on the Talking Pictures channel run by a chap and his daughter from a shed in there garden.
He obtained rights to a lot of Black and white films and television series for which makers thought there was no interest or demand.Watching audience for the channel is several million.
The Public Information films from the 1940/1950’s are held by the Imperial War Museum and shown with there permission. I wonder if Vintage clubs could have access to them for showing at Club nights.

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I do not know if any of you watch talking pictures channel 81 on Freeview, early morning they show all sorts of Goverment information films as short fillers, many I find interesting and one in recent weeks was a Ministry of Agriculture film on the construction of field storage clamps for potatoes and also carrots.They went through stage by stage on what to do but also why.
The sort of clamp was straw base, vegetable stored in triangle shape and overlaid with straw and earth top layer not forgetting straw vents to prevent overheating.
A interesting ten minutes bringing back memories of forming such clamps on the farm for potatoes.
I wonder is there a goverment archive on such films where you could obtained to show on club nights.
It also makes you ponder on the skills that workers in agriculture had, like clamping produce, thatching ricks to name but two.

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Reading those Allen’s activities It has made me ponder how employment has changed, how the Allen family with the decline of the steam manufacture and hire side of the company and in a period of economic depression they looked to developing other products to keep there workers in employment and such things as the Fairground rides and also electric hares for the new pastime of greyhound racing and so popular had that sport grown they made portable units for village fetes and fairs.
The one development that was the big winner was the Motor scythe.
The social side of things with sport clubs, produce shows etc and there are many articles on workers receiving presentations for 25 and 50 years service. It must have been a nice event for the chairmans wife visiting the works on the last working day before Christmas and to present all workers with a hamper whilst the directors manned the bar in the social club providing free drinks to assembled workers.
The Road Locomotive Society produced a book “Allens of Oxford” for its 75th anniversary quite pricey at £25 but a quality publication and first class read

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How interesting, it is always surprising what companies were involved in. On holiday in Sri Lanka we visited a tea factory and some of the tea processing machinery had been manufactured by Ransomes in 1948 and was still in use. Sadly more modern machinery came from China.

During this isolation period I have been reading some Allens of Oxford company employee newsletters which were issued four times a year and there is a story of the fairground roundabouts manufactured in the 1920’s by Allens where employees who could be spared were called to test ride the gallopers. The second produced was exhibited at the 1924 Wembley exhibition.

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The other tractor listed by this seller is a “K.J Hemingway Tractor”

Mr K.J Hemingway was the managing director of Pattisons based at Stanmore at the time in a former brewery, a lovely old fashioned gentleman he entertained me to tea and biscuits in his office back in 1981 when I was doing some research on a Pattison RCT tractor I had. He pulled down a ledger which handwritten recorded all the machine they supplied, buyer, specification, attachments etc. I wonder did it survive as the company later sold the city centre site for redevelopment and moved to a industrial estate in St Albans.
Pattisons had started in late Victorian times making shoes for ponies or donkeys pulling mowers to prevent damage to the turf and made all sorts of tools and equipment for sportsgrounds, golfcourses and parks. From the 1920’s they made light tractors based on Ford and Bedford light commercials for towing gang mowers but also with bodies and attachments for ground maintenance developing into the Pattison Worthington light tractor before WW2 and then the RCT tractors post war.
I do not think the tractor advertised is a recognised Pattison product but probably something assembled by Mr Hemmingway, the steering wheel/throttle looks from a President tractor, it looks to have three gearboxes possibly of Ford origin and the back axle looks 1920/1930 commercial with the tyre arrangement similar to that found on Pattison grounds tractors.
I can quite see Mr Hemingway walking through the spares department pulling obsolete parts to assemble a light tractor for his own use, it would be interesting to trace the 1966 registration to see how it is described.
Mr Hemingway contributed to a article on the Pattison company in the Old Glory magazine some years back and is probably no longer with us as he was a late middle aged man when I met him nearly 40 years ago

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On our Monarch tractor which has the same size and ply rating front tyres, the tyre pressure is maximum 20 psi

regards FP

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With a cast front your tractor is a MK1

If it was a early MK1 (yellow and red colours) the chassis and engine number would be on a cast aluminium makers plate mounted on the right chassis.

From what I can see your tractor is the Co-op Blue colour and the chassis has fixing holes for the underslung toolframe so I think this is a later MK1 where the chassis and engine numbers were on a brass makers plate on the dashboard to the right of the steering column.
A few more photographs would help further identification and if it still has the original engine number (on a machined flange over the manifold) I have Ford manufacturing records and can date engine production date.
Lucas also stamped date of manufacture on starter and dynamo so have a look at those
Happy to help and you can contact me on 01926 632509

regards Joe Paget

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Having a sort out at present and came across a spare parts list for a Martin Markham all steel 70/90 Trailer with a A3 size centre fold exploded view of the trailer with blow up’s of hydraulics, brakes, hitch etc

Send me a PM with your E mail details and I will scan and send to you.
Unlike yours it has steel deck and sides but running gear and chassis look same so it may assist your restoration

regards Joe Paget

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