SHEARING MACHINE

Frederick York Wolseley was an Irish-born New South Wales inventor and woolgrower who invented and developed the first commercially successful sheep shearing machinery after extensive experimentation. It evolutionist the wool industry.

Sheep farming looked a lot different in the early years of European settlement.

No fences, cared for by shepherds, moved over long distances following the grass, not many shearing sheds, shorn with hand shears.

FREDERICK YORK WOLSELEY            #1
 

FREDERICK YORK WOLSELEY'S INVENTION            #2
 

“The Hinkley brothers became contract shearers. They were one of the first to introduce mechanical shearing. Their plant plus steam engine was transported by train on the Great Southern Railway line as far as Beverley”.

Pearl Marshall, ‘Gnowangerup My Town’

They bought their portable steam run machine in c1915 and advertised in the Gnowangerup Star. They were the first to go into the business in the District using the machine.

FREDERICK YORK WOLSELEY'S INVENTION           #3
 

SHEARING USING SHEARS            #4
 

A patent for a "shearing machine" had been taken out in 1868, just as Frederick Wolsley was experimenting with one, which he patented in 1875. He developed shears from the horse-clippers made by John Howard, and the two worked together on a prototype.

Around two years of work later, the prototype of the handpiece and the power system was ready for demonstrations.

Wolsleys machine was pitted against a blade shearer who shore 3 sheep.

Then Wolsley shore the three sheep afterwards, and came away with another kilogram of wool.

By the 1880's the machines where in use and by the end of the decade large stations had installed the new machines.

David Unaipon (on the $50 note) - took out provisional patents for 19 inventions but was unable to afford to get any of his inventions fully patented. His most successful invention (provisional patent 15 624), a shearing machine that converted curvilineal motion into the straight line movement which is the basis of modern mechanical shears, was introduced without Unaipon receiving any financial return and, apart from a 1910 newspaper report acknowledging him as the inventor, he received no credit.

Once the shearers learned a new style of shearing the tallies rose amazingly.

By 1915 everywhere in Australia was using the machines.

Allan Faulkner: The first machine shearing took place at Dunlop station on the Darling River.

Rod Lahoar: There is some Wosleley shearing gear at the museum park at the Newman visitors centre. He returned to England and started manufacturing Wolseley cars.

 DAVID UNAIPON          #5
 

BRENTON HINKLEY ON THE LEFT  (2019)            #6
 

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References:                 Article:      

                                  Image:     1, 2, 4, 4, 5     Internet
                                                 6                    Brenden Hinkley

Copyright : Gordon Freegard 2024