The Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company
| Public limited company | |
| Industry | Wool, agricultural machinery |
| Founded | 1887 incorporated London— 9 October 1889 from 14 April 1986— Wolseley-Hughes Limited from 25 November 2010— Wolseley Limited |
| Headquarters | Birmingham, United Kingdom |
|
Key people
|
Frederick Wolseley Herbert Austin |
| Products | Sheep shearing machines |
| Website | www.wolseley.com |
The Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company Limited. was a London-incorporated public listed company created to capitalize on a business established by Frederick Wolseley in Australia.
The company has since been renamed Wolseley plc and remains listed on the . It is currently a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Wool was cliipped from the sheep's back by hand shears from time immemorial. Wolseley invented and developed the first satisfactory mechanical method using a power source away from the shearer's hand. The first power source was a horse gin connected by belt and pulley and a carefully designed driveshaft to a handpiece held by the shearer.
As well as relieving the shearer's hand of the cutting effort, the machine clips the wool at its full length, which often doubles or triples its value. It also removes the wool in a fleece instead of chopping it into small pieces like the shears.
The apparent simplicity of Wolseley's machine belies the decades of effort of many different inventors and engineers to create a satisfactory device.
The English business was founded by Frederick York Wolseley in London in 1889 and a company was incorporated there with a capital of £200,000 to better realize the potential of his sheep shearing invention patented in March 1877. Herbert Austin, who had worked on the product's development in Melbourne Australia from 1887, was appointed its manager and received a share of its equity.
Wolseley, owner of a large sheep station, had set up a business of the same name in Sydney, Australia, in 1887. He manufactured the sheep shearing machinery largely by assembling bought-in components. Impressed by Austin, who managed one of the suppliers, Wolseley employed him at this business.
His first sheep shearing machinery was driven by horse power replaced later by stationary engines. Following wide demonstrations in eastern Australia and New Zealand in 1887-1888, a woolshed in Louth, N.S.W., was set up with the machinery and was the first to complete a shearing with the machines. Eighteen more woolsheds were equipped with Wolseley's invention in 1888. The Australian incorporation was wound up and the business's ownership transferred to the new London company in 1889 but operations were retained in Australia.
During the early 1890s Austin studied Wolseley's shearing machinery in use on a large sheep station and patented several improvements. By 1893, however, they were facing a crisis when it was discovered they had sold a large amount of defective machinery, brought about by the failure of local suppliers to meet the required specifications. Austin was sent to England to open a manufacturing operation there. In November 1893 Wolseley and Austin arrived in England, where Austin managed the business from a small workshop in Broad Street, Birmingham. Wolseley, with his Australian pastoral interests, resigned in 1894 because of poor health.
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Wikipedia