Chapter 2

THE WOLSELEY SHEEP SHEARING MACHINE COMPANY, LTD

It is not commonly known that the house of Wolseley is one of the few remaining in England that can prove, by authentic evidence, an unbroken descent from Saxon times, and can show the inheritance of the same lands in the male line from a period long anterior to the Norman conquest. A legend in the family narrates that their ancestor was given the lands of Wiseli (now Wolseley) for destroying wolves in County Stafford in the reign of King Edgar, at which time wolves were exterminated in England.

For the purpose of this narrative, however, it is not necessary to go back further than 1837 in which year, Frederick York Wolseley was born.

He was the third of four sons, the eldest of whom was to become the renowned Field-Marshal, Viscount Wolseley, one of the most outstanding soldiers of his time and whose fame added to the English language the expression, "All Sir Garnet", which might be described as the fore-parent of the Americanism " O.K."

F. Y. Wolseley, the only civilian of the four brothers, was born in County Dublin, and at an early age he manifested an instinctive desire to travel. Before he was 30, he sailed for Australia, and in 1867-68 he became, the manager of a sheep station in Victoria belonging to a Settler named Caldwell.

It was while he was so engaged that the possibilities of utilising machinery for shearing sheep occurred to him. He had a natural flair for engineering and carried out much experimental work, but under a considerable handicap because of the difficulties of finding firms which were both willing and able to undertake the manufacture of the small and intricate components for his machines.

In spite of this, he persevered with the development of his new idea to such good effect that, within the next five years, he was able to make use of mechanical shears on the station which he managed.

Then, for a brief period, he returned to England, but went back to Australia again with the fixed determination to devote his whole time to the improvement and development of his invention.

After three years of costly and laborious experiment which he carried out from a room in Bourke Street West, Melbourne, he was rewarded by the grant of his first patent for a sheep-shearing machine. In 1876, he decided that the time had arrived for further trials of his machine under practical working conditions, and accordingly purchased a large sheep station near Walgett, New South Wales, where he continued to live for some years, during which period a great part of his time was spent in perfecting his various inventions.

In 1887, the Wolseley Sheep-Shearing Machine Company, Limited, was established with its offices at 19 Philip Street, Sydney, for the object of exploiting the large number of patents then held by F. Y. Wolseley. By the time the English company was established in 1889, and the old Australian company was wound up, some forty or more patents stood in his name, each one relating to sheep-shearing machinery.

The company, however, failed to make the progress anticipated by its sponsors. Wolseley was ahead of his time, and progress was held in check by the fact that his products, in spite of all the experimental work that had been carried out for so long, were not sufficiently reliable for the work involved. Owing to transport and other difficulties, overhauls and general servicing, so essential to checkmate adverse criticism resulting from any breakdowns, were rarely possible. Apart from design problems, the manufacture of the shears involved the company in difficulties because it was not easy in those days to find engineering firms capable of turning out parts which were both sufficient in quantity and up to the requisite standard.

Extreme accuracy of workmanship was essential, just as it is to-day, when quantity production is at stake, and this applies whether the particular branch of engineering is the manufacture of sheep-shears or motor cars. A number of engineering firms, both large and small, were tried and orders placed for certain parts to be made and delivered to the Wolseley Company.

One of the smaller firms that was given a trial was managed by a young man named Herbert Austin. He was the son of a Farmer and was born at Little Missenden, Bucks. It was his parents' intention that he should be trained as an Engineer, and arrangements were made for him to serve an apprenticeship to the Great Northern Railway Company, although the boy does not appear to have been any too enthusiastic about the idea.

Whilst on a visit to this country in 1883, his mother's brother, who was an Engineer and had spent many years in Australia, fired the boy's imagination with stories of the chances for young men, particularly those with an engineering bent, in this great new country of Australia

As a result, he returned with his uncle to Australia in 1884 and started work at an engineering firm in North Melbourne, of which his uncle was the manager. During the next few years, Austin worked for various firms and became manager of a small one which was approached by the Wolseley Sheep-Shearing Machine Company to manufacture parts for them.

This gave him his opportunity, and after experimenting with the shears, he pointed out to the Wolseley company several weaknesses in their design and construction and made numerous suggestions which would render them more reliable and suitable for the remote and unmechanically minded squatter.

The task proved of the greatest possible interest to him. He had studied conditions in the Australian Bush and well knew the many problems that would have to be faced before the products of the company could ever hope to become generally acceptable. Sheep-shearing machinery would have to be as near fool-proof as it was possible to bring machinery in any form, and the whole force of his inventive powers was brought to bear on this problem.

On the other hand, F. Y. Wolseley and his co-Directors quickly recognized Austin's ability, and gave him every encouragement to use his initiative.

In the meantime, it had been decided to transfer the activities of the company from Australia to England, and a new Company was registered with its Head Office at No. 3, Crown Court, Old Broad Street, London.

In the terms of an agreement dated October 1st, 1889, the new Company to be formed and registered in England was to purchase the assets, etc., of the old Australian company for £141,665, of which £75,000 was to be paid in cash and the balance of £66,665 by allotment of 13,333 fully paid deferred shares of £5 each.

The Wolseley Sheep-Shearing Machine Company, Limited was registered on October 9th, 1889, with a nominal capital of £200,000 divided into 40,000 shares of £5 each. The first Directors were: -

• James Alexander,

• F. H. Dangar,

• John Muirhead,

• Abraham Scott, and

• Frederick York Wolseley (Managing Director).

The address of the latter was shown as the Oriental Club, Hanover Square, London.

As an indication of the extent to which the business had developed, it is interesting to examine the figures which are set out in a contract signed between F. Y. Wolseley and an Engineer named William Bourne, in consideration of a loan made to him by F. Y. Wolseley to enable him to install additional machinery. He undertook to supply the company with 8,000 sheep-shearing machines at 18s each, together with 192,000 combs at Is each, and the same number of cutters at 3½ d each; all of which were to be delivered at the rate of 2,000 Machines per month. Considered in the perspective of the time of which we write, these are impressive figures.

In spite of the transfer of the company to England, its contact with H. Austin continued; the company had adopted many of his suggestions with marked success, and in 1892 his name first appeared in the official records of the company.

On March 10th of the following year, an agreement was signed between the company and Herbert Austin in the terms of which Austin assigned all his patents relating to sheep-shearing machinery to the company, the consideration being the modest one of 80 ordinary shares of £5 each, fully paid. All these patents were described as " Improvements in tools for shearing or clipping hair or wool." A few months later, he was offered the important position of manager of the newly formed Wolseley Sheep-Shearing Machine Company in England, and in the winter of 1893 he returned to England with his wife and young child.

Since the formation of the new company, its affairs had gone badly. By 1894 the situation was becoming serious and F. Y. Wolseley resigned; he died during January, 1899.

The reason for the company's difficulties was largely due to the fact that these in control had just that little knowledge of machinery which is always so dangerous. Nearly all the parts which constituted the shears were manufactured by outside firms, delivered to and assembled by the Wolseley Sheep-Shearing Machine Company in their workshop off Broad Street, Birmingham. There existed only a haphazard system of inspection and a considerable amount of thoroughly bad work was being turned out.

Nothing but drastic action could save the situation, and Austin, profiting by his experiences in Australia, and his knowledge of what a breakdown meant to the settlers in the remote country districts, persuaded the directors to act.

They decided to scrap large quantities of parts which were either in stock or in the course of manufacture, and to repurchase the whole of the complete machines which had been delivered and which were thought to contain faulty parts.

In spite of this drastic step, which cost the company a great deal of money, they continued to suffer from the same difficulties in obtaining, from outside firms, parts of a sufficiently high standard of workmanship to satisfy their requirements.

The situation finally became so acute that the directors decided, in spite of funds being low, that the company would cut itself adrift from all outside influence; remove to larger premises, install new plant, and undertake the manufacture in their own works of all the parts previously bought-out.

It was during 1895 that a move was made to Sydney Works, Alma Street, Aston, Birmingham, and as soon as the necessary plant had been installed and production got under way, a marked improvement in the quality and subsequent reliability was apparent.

Then another difficulty was experienced-the conservatism of their prospective customers - a habit of mind so innate in the Australian settler.

In order to popularize their products it was found necessary to educate the settlers, and what would nowadays be called a publicity campaign had to be undertaken. Unfortunately, such a scheme takes time, and it was decided that some alternative work would have to be undertaken to add a little grist to the mill.

A department was opened in 1895 for manufacturing machine tools principally for cotton machine makers. The cycle industry was then at its height, and quantities of bicycle parts were turned out and even numbers of complete bicycles (Herbert Austin had been an ardent cyclist in Australia). It is noteworthy too that the original vertical semi-automatic chucking lathe was first made at the Alma Street factory. Almost any class of work was undertaken, and it was while this fight between the Company and the wolf, which so persistently approached its door, was in progress that strange rumours began to circulate about some new form of mechanically propelled road vehicle. Numbers were reported to be in use in France and Germany, and one or two had managed to squeeze their way into this country while the Authorities were not looking.

The laws of England held them to be so dangerous and undesirable that their speed was limited to 4 m.p.h. and each one had to be preceded by a pedestrian - the red flag story is a fallacy.

It is not easy to visualize less promising conditions for the establishment of a motorcar industry in this country than those of 1895. To popularize mechanically operated sheep-shears among the Squatters in Australia was simple when compared to the introduction of a horseless vehicle to horse-loving England. The very fact that it appeared to be a rival to the age-long friend of man was, in itself, almost sufficient to create a grave for its own body.

To Austin, all this was no deterrent. A keen cyclist, a trained engineer who had already had experience of small gas or paraffin internal combustion engines, the possibilities envisaged proved irresistible. He even made the journey to Paris for the purpose of examining some of the continental machines. The exact year of his visit is not known, but on page 399 of The Autocar of August of 1929, he says: - Though I had only a vague view of the possibilities of mechanical road traction, nevertheless, some two or three years before I built my first experimental car in 1895, I visited Paris...

Back in Birmingham, he was faced with almost the same difficulties that an earlier pioneer, Carl Benz, encountered at Mannheim when, in 1884, he saw the immense future before the horseless vehicle; the first Benz and the first Wolseley cars had to be designed and built in secret and in their Designers' own time. Neither Benz nor Austin was his own master; their partners or Directors had no faith whatever in motorcars, and for a long time they would not agree to any money being expended on what they held to be useless experiments

And so, against this background-and in secret, the first Wolseley car ever made, which will be illustrated and described in detail in the next chapter, was designed. The crudeness of its general layout, when viewed through modern spectacles, is offset by numbers of features which are unquestionably ingenious.

It is a curious fact, which will be apparent to every student of motorcar design, that many of the pioneer designers originally set their faith in a vehicle with only three road wheels. One need only mention Carl Benz, J. H. Knight, Bollee, De Dion, the American Duryea, and even the steam advocate Leon Serpollet to bear out this statement. It is, therefore, no matter for wonderment that Herbert Austin, when designing the first Wolseley car in 1895, should follow the same: because it was a simpler proposition."