Tools & tillage: a journal on the history of the implements of cultivation and other agricultural processes (3.1976/1979)

THE EARLY THRESHING MACHINE IN

NORTHUMBERLAND

By
Stuart Macdonald

The purpose of threshing is to separate grain
from straw; the purpose of the machine was to
replace the flail, the only tool previously used
for threshing. Hence the threshing machine
was potentially of use on any arable holding,
though its importance to agriculture was
based on other factors as well. In the late 18th
and early 19th centuries it was easily the most
complex and the most expensive piece of agri-
cultural equipment in existence (Young 1793,
248). The threshing machine was the only
agricultural implement to rival the technology
of contemporary industry; it was outstanding
in a world of harrows and one-horse carts.
While other agricultural machines were val-
ued in pounds and shillings, the threshing ma-
chine cost tens, and more usually hundreds, of
pounds. Not only did the machine thresh, but
it also permitted the mechanisation of other
farming processes and encouraged the applica-
tion of steam power in agriculture long before
the steam plough.
The threshing machine is also of no small
interest to those engaged in the investigation
of agricultural progress. It is rare to be able to
attribute any agricultural development to a
precise date and origin, for an implement to
have been so different and important that it
made impact enough to produce traceable and
sufficient records, and for an agricultural ma-
chine to have been so satisfactory in its opera-
tion that it remained substantially unaltered
throughout the period under consideration
(fig. 1). Consequently, the threshing machine
deserves the closest attention in a study of

agricultural development and innovation and
it is remarkable that so little interest has hith-
erto been shown (Hobsbawn and Rude
359-63; Collins 1972, 16-33; Tritton no 1.
7-12, no 2. 53-56; Hutton 30-35).
The construction of the Threshing Machine
The threshing machine was commonly ac-
cepted to have been rendered effective in 1786
by Andrew Meikle in East Lothian (Bailey
and Culley 1805, 49-52; Farm. Mag. 4, 1803,
128). Other machines capable of threshing
corn were contrived both before and after this
date (Ransome 137-73), some of the earliest in
Northumberland itself (NC 15/4 1769; NC
29/12 1798; Bailey and Culley 49-50; NC25/8
1810), but the Meikle version was unique in
being sufficiently refined to thresh thorough-
ly and cleanly while being strong enough to
remain intact during the process. The Meikle
or Scotch threshing machine worked on the
scutching principle by which bars fixed to a
revolving cylinder beat the grain from the
corn fed to it. It could derive its power from
horses, wind, water, steam or any combina-
tion of these (Gray 215-16) and this power
source was more important than it might at
first seem. With sufficient power, various ad-
ditions could be made to the basic Meikle
thresher. One of the earliest - and probably a
Northumbrian improvement - was the circu-
lar rake (fig. 2, 3), invented in 1789, to retain
some order amongst the threshed straw and to
allow it to part with the last grains (Bailey and
Culley 1797, 46). The winnowing machine