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<DIV STYLE="text-align:Justify;font-family:Georgia;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:16;color:#000000;"><P><SPAN><SPAN>2. <B>International 10-20 'Titan' tractor, 1917.</B><P> The Titan belongs to the first generation of farm tractors with a design and arrangement that still owed much to the steam traction engine. It was built by the International Harvester Company of Chicago, USA, and about 3,000 were imported into Britain during and immediately following the First World War to help with the task of boosting food production. The list price when new was in the region of £500. This one arrived in 1917 and was presented to the Museum almost 40 years later by the International Harvester Company.<P> The tractor is powered by a twin cylinder internal combustion engine which was started with petrol but then, when it had warmed up sufficiently, ran on paraffin. The big tank at the front is for water and is part of the engine cooling system. There are three gears - two forward and one reverse - and the top speed was about 3 miles per hour.<P> These large, lumbering and relatively inefficient machines were not greatly effective for arduous fieldwork such as ploughing, especially on heavy wet land. They were, however, useful for general haulage about the farm and they could be used as a stationary power source for threshing machines by connecting a belt drive to the flywheel.<P> 56/280</SPAN></SPAN></P></DIV><DIV STYLE="text-align:Justify;font-family:Georgia;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:16;color:#000000;"><P><SPAN><SPAN>2. <B>International 10-20 'Titan' tractor, 1917.</B><P> The Titan belongs to the first generation of farm tractors with a design and arrangement that still owed much to the steam traction engine. It was built by the International Harvester Company of Chicago, USA, and about 3,000 were imported into Britain during and immediately following the First World War to help with the task of boosting food production. The list price when new was in the region of £500. This one arrived in 1917 and was presented to the Museum almost 40 years later by the International Harvester Company.<P> The tractor is powered by a horizontal 2,600 cc twin cylinder internal combustion engine which was governed to run at 500 r.p.m. It was started with petrol but then, when it had warmed up sufficiently, ran on paraffin from a 16 gallon container mounted low down just behind the front wheels. The big tank on the chassis at the front is for water and is part of the engine cooling system which operated on a recirculatory system, with water passing up through the engine and then back to the tank through a pipe at the top. Lubrication was managed by a complicated oiler, situated over the engine and just forward of the driver's position, having six separate sets of pumps and pipes. Ignition was by a large impulse magneto. The engine was started by pulling on a handle fixed to the flywheel. There are three gears - two forward and one reverse - and the top speed was about 3 miles per hour. Curiously, the gearing ratio gave the tractor a slightly higher maximum speed in reverse than going forwards.<P> These large, lumbering and relatively inefficient machines were not greatly effective for arduous fieldwork such as ploughing, especially on heavy wet land. They were, however, useful for general haulage about the farm and they could be used as a stationary power source for threshing machines by connecting a belt drive to the flywheel.<P>56/280</SPAN></SPAN></P></DIV>
Archival history
MERL miscellaneous note - 'Titan Tractor (Acc. No. 56/280) // The Titan tractor in MERL's collections ended its working life driving the saw bench of a small timber business in Northumberland in the 1950s. The following details were recollected on 22nd August 2002 by Mr Ian Forrest, a one-time employee at the saw mill, and recorded by Will Phillips. // A Mr. Andy Thompson and his brother Robert started up a small timber business at Sidwood, Greenhaugh, Northumberland in c.1951. A self-sufficient business, they felled the trees (on the local estate owned by the Watson family), cut the timber, and made and sold the products at the weekly market. // Much of the timber was used for making chocks [roof supports] for mines, although they also made fence posts, 5-bar gates and chicken houses. For the gate posts, soft wood was used such as pine. For the chocks, hard woods such as birch or ash were needed. // Apart from the two Thompson brothers, only one other person was employed at the saw mill. This was Ian Forrest, who, on finishing school at about the age of 15, started working there full time (though he had done occasional work before). Ian was a general hand - clearing up, stacking timber, filling up the water of the engine. He also learned a lot of joinery skills from watching the Thompson brothers at work. // In the saw mill, a Fordson tractor was initially used to drive the saw bench, but it proved too lightweight when it came to prolonged, heavy-duty work and was prone to stalling. Hence, in c.1952, Andy Thompson acquired this Titan tractor to replace to Fordson. // He found it in an old quarry at Redesmouth, Bellingham, Northumberland. It was one of at least three other Titans abandoned there, but this was the only one that Andy could fire up. As far as Ian Forrest can remember, the only thing wrong with the Titan when it was found was its spark plugs, and once Andy had replaced the magneto with one from a Morris Commercial it worked perfectly. For belt-driven work, the Titan was much better served than the Fordson, and proved extremely reliable and hardy. // The average day at the saw mill began at 8.30am, with lunch at 12 noon, and the afternoon session from 1-4pm. This was the routine five days a week, during which time the Titan was running constantly. Andy was the one to start the tractor up in the mornings, needing, as it did, a bit of brute force to turn the crank handle. To start the engine, the carburettor needed filling up with petrol, the oil pump needed filling and priming, and the water tank was topped up - one of Ian Forrest's jobs during the day was to check the water tank and fill it as necessary. Once there checks were done, one revolution of the handle would usually start the engine. // In c.1956, the Thompson's timber business wound down. Andy Thompson sold the Titan to International Harvester, from whom MERL acquired it, and the saw bench went to a farmer named Willy Wood at Sneep Farm, Tarset. The building which housed the business no longer stands, neither does the Watson's estate house (on whose land the timber was felled).', Press cutting [News from International Harvester Company of Great Britain Limited. 1st August 1956] – 'On Wednesday, August 1st., International Harvester Company of Great Britain Limited, presented to the Museum of Rural Life at Reading, an historic Titan Tractor, produced by International Harvester in America over 40 years ago. Mr D. C. Haney, Director of Sales for International Harvester Company of Great Britian, Limited, said: "This is not the first tractor that was ever made, nor is it the most remarkable, but it is very appropriate that this particular model should takes its place in a museum of English rural life. Before the war of 1914/1918, tractors were hardly seen at all in this country, but with big demands being made on man-power, British agriculture had to become tractor-minded. From 1914 to the early 20's, when this model was discontinued, between three and four thousand Titan tractors were imported into Great Britain and that made a very considerable alteration to British farm economy. // The Titan clearly marks an epoch in tractor development - a change from the old heavy tractory which was based on the steam engine design. It was, however, still primarily just a draft machine, a powerful mechanical horse. The post-war tractors that followed, particularly the Farmall and the International 10/20, introduced completely new methods, which revolutionised the mechanisation of farm work. These brought the first mounted equipment and the first power driven machines, and from that point onwards, the tractors were used less and less to pull horse-type equipment. // The old Titan, although a lightweight tractor, still weighed approximately 200 lbs. for each unit of engine horse power, as compared with the 160 lbs. for the tractor of the early 1930's and with the 110 lbs. per unit of horse-power as instanced by our own latest and British built tractor, the B-250. // The Titan has long been obselete by all normal standards, but many are still operating on belt work on farms up and down the country. Their engines appear to be indestructible. This particular tractor has been working on a sawmill for a timber merchant in Hexham and it still delivers plenty of power. // In some ways it seems a pity to put an end to its useful work, but in passing it into the care of the Keeper of the Museum of English Rural Life we are ensuring that posterity will recognise the part played by the forerunners of the tractor industry."', MERL miscellaneous note [International Harvesting Company of Great Britain, Limited] - 'A Brief History of Early Tractor Development. // The story of the tractor properly begins with the discovery of steam. Watt's patent of 1784 was for a steam road carriage, not for the railway locomotive which Stevenson produced in 1817. The first portable steam power plant appears to have been built in Philadelphia in 1849. In 1867 it was recognised by the U.S. Commissioner of Agriculture that power could be as helpful to farming as to transportation, but for many years the application of steam power to farm problems when no further than threshing, and the adaptation of power to ploughing was not attempted until near the end of the 19th century. When specially designed steam apparatus was produced, it was not very successful. The field locomotive was too cumbersome and too costly for individual farm use. // What is supposed to be the first manufactured gasoline tractor dates from 1895, but this was not successful. Comparatively few tractors were built by any one company before 1906, when the large scale tractor industry was born. Although there were early developments in this country, it was really the pressing needs of the huge agricultural areas of the Mid-Western United States and of Western Canada that made large scale production both possible and necessary. // Our own company built its first tractor in 1906, just 50 years ago, and these first units comprised our own Company's 15 horse-power plant mounted on a friction drive chassis produced by the Ohio Manufacturing Company. The engine had an open crank-case, single cylinder, make and break ignition and spray tank cooling. The whole power plant was shifted on rollers to engage the friction drive disc. Although reports on their behaviour were satisfactory and some hundreds were made, it became apparent that friction would not serve as a method of transmission and when tractor manufacture was transferred in 1908 to our own Company's works in Milwaukee, a standard type of gear transmission was adopted. In the same year, five manufacturers of gasoline tractors and five steam adherents competed in a great tractor ploughing demonstration in Winnipeg. The Kinnard Haines petrol tractor won, our own petrol model was second and the ultimate doom of steam was sounded. At that time Canada was the leading tractor market consuming two-thirds of all tractors built. // In 1908, the average weight per horse-power of tractors was 537 lbs., and tractors were still crude, huge and lumbering. International Harvesting Company climbed ahead of Hart Parr as the leading producers of tractors in 1910 and by 1911 was responsible for one-third of the American output. (At that time, quantity production of tractors did not exist outside the United States). But, however heavy the tractors were, they were still very satisfactory from a performance standpoint. In 1909, an International Harvester tractor was shown at Amiens and competed with some of the European makes, being victorious. The Paris Office Manager wrote: "I am pleased to say that our tractor worked two complete days without stopping for a single instant owing to any difficulty or disarrangement of the working parts." // The first light tractor was produced by the Bull Tractor Company in 1913. This weighed only 3,000 lbs. but the following year International Harvester Company introduced its own light kerosene burning tractor, known as the Mogul 8/16. This was immediately followed by the Titan 10/20, the tractor you see here today. From these beginnings have grown the vast tractor manufacturing organisations with which we are all so familiar to-day and of which International Harvester Company has remained the leader. Over a year ago from its many works in the United States and from its other works in England, France, Germany and Australia, International Harvester had produced the staggering total of over 3,000,000 tractors.', MERL miscellaneous note - This tractor was restored at Rycotewood College, Thame, between 1977 and 1980. There are detailed papers concerning the restoration process within the accession file as well as some photographic prints and copy prints of negatives held in the Museum of English Rural Life Archive.