THE FIRST HARVESTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20199, 8 March 1929, Page 13

THE FIRST HARVESTER.

A WONDERFUL ROMANCE. JOHN RIDLEY'S STRIPPER. [from our own correspondent.] SYDNEY. Feb. 21. A wonderful romance was celebrated at Sunshine, Victoria, recently, when, on the wall of an old slab hut, a brass tablet was unveiled bearing this inscription "The first harvester was manufactured in 1884 in this smithy at Drummartin, Victoria, by Hugh Victor McKay. The late Hugh Victor McKay, founder of one of the greatest manufacturing establishments in Australia, evolved,, his first winnowing and stripping machine from t lie invention of John Ridley, who, in 1843. in South Australia, devised the first stripper. Last week in Adelaide Mr. S. McKay, chairman of directors of H. V. McKay Proprietary, Limited,, announced that" his firm would contribute £SOO toward tho erection of a memorial to John Ridley, inventor of the stripper. Already the Ridley scholarship at" tHe Adelaide University commemorates this invention, and its incalculable value- to Australia and to the world. -alvf; X John Ridley was born in the County of Durham, England, in 1806, and at an early age devoted himself to scientific experiments. It is said that he constructed a workable electrical machina when ho was only seven yeare of age. When he was 33 he migrated to South: Australia, and brought with him a flout? mill worked by steam, which he set-up in Hindmarsh.. This mill ground the' -first, flour from the first South Australian harvest. li* >-• . A couple of years later, Mr. Ritllev took up farming, and in the summer of 1842-3 was confronted with the problem of reaping and threshing an over-ripe, wheat crop when it was impossible to obtain hands to help him. All his neighbours were in a similar plight, and after consultation with one of them—John Wrathall Bull—Mr. Ridley constructed a "locomotive thresher," which had a horizontal projecting comb that, stripped the wheat ears from the standing straw. The device had also revolving beaters driven by belts from the wheels of the machine.The machine itself was propelled from behind by a team of horses harnessed to a long tail-pole. . With this primitive stripper several crops were gathered during the harves 1843-4. The work was done quickly, cheaply, with the minimum of la™ • There was another advanttage. . . en . ripeness of tho crops bef K £ sured the shipping of he w c land in so dry a ,ailing standing the I»"e. n e ; c( ,|] ent condition ships, it ai - The conservative and j b ' v English traditions, favourab'lv impressed, and tha new machine was not immediately popu•u But gradually Mr. Ridley's strapper, and its successor, the harvester, becamo the chief crop-reaping rhachmes. Mr. Ridlev did not jwtent his invention. He regarded it as a gift to South Australia for the prosperity that had come to hua there. He died in England in 1887*