Fascinating story of the David Brown tractor

How tractors came to be produced in Huddersfield, more famous for worsted cloth, a fine choral society and its football team, is a story which has already been told in the Nostalgia Road book David Brown Tractors 1936 - 1964 by transport historian Professor Alan Earnshaw. Now, in a sequel, former David Brown Field Test Engineer, Anthony J. Heath takes up the story of David Brown Tractors 1965 - 1988.

And shortly the publishers will concentrate on producing a book chronicling the David Brown plant at Leigh.

"There must be an equally fascinating story to tell about Leigh and we'd love to hear from any ex-employees with information and pictures."

Contact Trans-Pennine Publishing at PO Box 10, Appleby in Westmorland, Cumbria CA16 6FA.

The Heath family had a long-time connection with David Brown, and Anthony's Grandfather was an inspector at the Park Works factory, and he later succeeded in gaining an apprenticeship for his son with the company. By working hard and attending night school, Anthony's father managed to acquire a post in the technical drawing office at the tractor works, before moving on to become the technical drawing and metal-work teacher at Huddersfield's Deighton Secondary Modern School. As a result, Anthony had an interest in all things mechanical from an early age. During his latter years at school he also developed an interest in the locally-made David Brown Tractors, and would often write to the company for information. Like thousands of other young enthusiasts, his enquiries would be rewarded by replies containing the latest sales brochures, publicity material and photographs. It was therefore only natural that he should apply to David Brown Tractors for a technical apprenticeship on leaving school.

Despite the enormous size and complexity of the tractor works where he started his training, the Brown's factory at Meltham Mills was essentially part of a rural village and the works fitted snugly into an attractive wooded valley on the edge of the Pennines. It was an unlikely setting for any large engineering works, but here thousands of tractors

were produced between 1939 and 1988. Meltham Mills and the nearby town of Meltham were dominated by the influences of this exacting, but rather benevolent company, which touched the lives of thousands of local folk. From the firm's inception in 1860, when the first David Brown started a small wooden gear-making shop in Huddersfield, the

company expanded to employ 16,000 people just over a century later. By the end of the 1960s the firm had become an international operation with a turn-over in excess of £55 million and had won the Queen's Award to Industry.

For its first four decades David Brown specialised in the production of wooden gears for the textile industry, but as technology progressed they began to produce more advanced gearing systems and an early innovation was the change from wood to cast iron and then from cast-iron to steel. By the end of the 19th century, Frank Brown, son of the founder, decided that the firm's Huddersfield premises were much too small for their needs, and after a lengthy search the firm purchased Park House at Lockwood. Manufacturing was commenced in a corner of the grounds, and the establishment of the world-famous Park Gear Works had begun. After a period of consolidation, aided by a full order book through the First World War, the firm began to expand on its gear-making activities. In this period Brown's devised and patented the precision worm reduction gear. In the 1920s further developments were made to the precision products range, and the company began to achieve a monopoly in supplying gearboxes to the developing automotive trade - particularly motor lorries and buses. In 1934, Frank's son David, expanded the business by purchasing the old Cammell Laird Tyre Rolling mill at Penistone which was converted into a steel foundry reducing the need to purchase raw supplies from outside sources.

David Browns had already tried its hand at motor manufacturing in Huddersfield, but it had been unsuccessful in its attempts to join this industry, although they later worked very closely with many motor vehicle builders including the local firm of Karrier Motors. Whilst Frank Brown had no desire to try re-entering this competitive market, his son David had realised the tremendous potential which vehicle manufacturing could provide. Therefore, when an Irish engineer by the name of Harry Ferguson approached the company to help with his ideas for a new farm tractor, David Brown vigorously seized the opportunity.

Ferguson came from a farming background, but at an early age he left the farm and became an automobile mechanic. He soon became well-known in his locality, due to his exploits with motor-cycles and racing cars, but he went on to form his own company repairing tractors, most of which were of American origin. He was a very individual character, and quite unlike David Brown but the two of them formed a partnership in 1936; between them they produced the first tractor in the world to be equipped with hydraulic lift and three-point linkage. Sadly the partnership was not harmonious, and it is easily understandable why two extremely capable engineers with completely different (but strong) temperaments should, in the long run, each seek to go their own way.

So, in 1939, David Brown acquired the vacant Meltham Mills, which were located some three miles from Lockwood, but benefited from being connected to Park Works by a branch line railway. These cotton thread mills had been run down from 1934 onwards, after the Depression forced the United Thread Mills to transfer their production from Yorkshire to Scotland. The thread company were desperate for a buyer, the local people were desperate for work. Brown got the plant for a song, but he already knew that every inch of engineering space would be welcomed in the very near future. He was proved correct, and throughout the war Meltham Mills played a vital role in war production, with tank gearboxes, aero-gears and military tractors being produced alongside David Brown's own agricultural tractor the VAK1. Indeed, at one time it was the only factory still capable of producing gearboxes for the Spitfire and Hurricane fighter aircraft and the Lancaster bomber, as all Brown's contemporaries had been blitzed by the Luftwaffe. The enemy searched in vain for the Meltham Mills works, but its wooded location concealed the factory and it carried on unscathed. During the war the works also turned out hundreds of heavy aircraft towing tractors for the Royal Air Force, and these were used on aerodromes all around the world as the offensive against the Axis forces built up. As peace returned the floodgates opened and by 1948 the firm was making and selling 100 agricultural tractors a week.

As the years progressed, David Brown's grew into a corporation, and new gear plants were acquired or opened at Sunderland, Salford, Solihull and North London. In a very short period of time the application of the gearing division's products were found in the aircraft, automotive and railway industries. They supplied parts for steel mills, pulp mills and paper mills, sugar mills, armoured fighting vehicles and ship building to name but a few. They also owned the famous luxury and sporting car manufacturers Aston-Martin Lagonda, and the ship-building firms of John L. Thornycroft Ltd and Vospers Ltd. Other divisions of the company produced pumps, industrial heating equipment, honing equipment, microwave ovens, interior design and furnishing contracts and industrial oil burning equipment.

The firm's tractor group was a major operation in its own right and it had ten subsidiary companies. The principal one was Harrison, McGregor & Guest Ltd. at the Albion Works, Leigh. Overseas companies were found in Australia, Ireland, South Africa, Eire, USA, West Germany, and Denmark. The company was then the largest British-owned producer of agricultural tractors, with 80% of the output going for export. The dealer network numbered some 2,508 agents in 100 lands. It was an organisation which one could be proud to be a part of, and it was still run as a small family firm until it 'merged' with J.I. Case, part of the huge Tenneco Group from the United States in 1972.

Thereafter things began to change, slowly at first, but increasing in rapidity as American influences took over. Part of a multi-national empire, David Brown had to increasingly struggle to maintain both its own identity, and its share in the market place, as Case changed the entire Meltham operation.

By the start of the 1980s it was obvious that things would have to happen. When Case bought the redundant International Harvester plant at Doncaster and were promised a Government-backed multi-million pound refurbishment of the works, it was obvious that Meltham's days were numbered.

By the mid-1980s, threat of closure had prompted action plans and campaigns, not least of which was that run by the Huddersfield Examiner. Tirelessly, down to when the last tractor rolled off the production line in March 1988, the newspaper joined unions, MPs, councillors, local community groups and the factory workers in a bid to stave off closure. But, one by one, the workforce was whittled down from between 3,000 and 4,000 to just a few hundred. A few were relocated to Doncaster, others took enforced retirement and some went into completely new industries. One such worker was Anthony Heath from Shepley, a field-test engineer who (of all things) became a chimney sweep.

His new book proclaims that he is happy in his new career, but it is quite evident that he still has a great passion for his old line of work. In a series of chapters, Anthony chronicles the various developments in the range of David Brown Tractors from 1965 to 1988, and at the end of his book he provides a comprehensive over-view of the reasons behind the closure of the works. Packed with words and pictures, this book is obviously a labour of love, and like the preceding volume covering the period from 1936 to 1964, it is expected to be read all around the world. The first volume sold

into 43 countries, and already orders for this work have been placed from America, Australia, Brazil, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, South Africa, Sweden and Zimbabwe.