In March 1922, Arthur Clifford Howard formed a syndicate and created Austral Auto Cultivators Pty Ltd at Moss Vale. He took over the McCleery works to produce a new rotary hoe cultivator which he had invented and patented. It would revolutionise ploughing.
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As told previously, after initial struggles, the business took off and a factory closer to Sydney was needed, the Moss Vale works being too small and its location incurring high freight costs.
A suitable new site was found at Northmead near Parramatta in 1927. A year later his new factory was producing three different types of hand-controlled machines, embodying complete tractor and engine. The company’s first Australian tractor, the Howard DH 22, rolled off the production line, initiating the first large-scale production of tractors in Australia. It had been especially built for work with the rotary hoe and was made necessary due to the withdrawal from the market of the Ford Motor Company’s Fordson tractor.
The Australian Dictionary of Biography entry on Howard notes that “despite reduced sales during the Depression of the 1930s, he raised new capital for his company, renamed as Howard Auto Cultivators. Finding it difficult to meet overseas demand stimulated by a successful export drive, he arranged a 10-year licence with an English firm to make his machines for markets outside Australia. In 1937 unauthorised design alterations took him to England where the licence was terminated. He returned briefly to Australia to resign his position of managing director at Howard Auto Cultivators.”
Howard left his half-brother Albert in charge of the Northmead plant, which employed nearly 600 men. In July 1938 Howard formed a new company in England, Rotary Hoes Ltd, based in East Horndon, Essex. When World War II began the factory was turned over to the war effort, although many cultivators were still manufactured to assist with food production. Howard gained a reputation in England during the war as ‘the man who could supply anything in a hurry’. After the war he expanded his business to include three factories in England and also set up ten subsidiary companies internationally: in the United States, South Africa, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Brazil, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand.
The Howard Group of Companies then became a holding company for a wholly owned subsidiary, Howard Rotavator Co Ltd, to which it transferred the manufacture and distribution of rotavators (a new name for the improved rotary hoe), manure spreaders, trench diggers and soil stabilization machinery. In 1959 Howard bought back his old business at Northmead which had passed to other hands. As a wholly owned subsidiary it continued the local manufacture and distribution of rotavators as well as other farm machinery.
Howard’s company in England received the Queen's award to industry in 1966 and in 1970, still a managing director, he was appointed a Companion of the British Empire for ‘services rendered to export’. Cliff Howard died on January 4, 1971, aged 77, at an Essex hospital.
His son John became managing director in Australia, responsible for various plants including one established in 1973 at Moss Vale. This was heralded in local papers: “It is appropriate that, on the threshold of new and exciting developments, the Howard Group of Companies should return home to continue the experimental work that has kept it in the forefront of world mechanisation progress”.
Tarcoola, a large rural property on Douglas Road, Moss Vale, was purchased from the Chauncy family for use as an experimental complex to test and develop prototype machinery. The property continued to be farmed along the successful lines of the previous owners. In 1985, however, after the Howard Group was acquired by the Danish Thrige Agro Group, the Moss Vale property was sold.
The powered rotary hoe, invented by Cliff Howard at Moss Vale and patented in 1920, created a revolution – nothing since the stump jump plough had made such an impact on the land.
A Howard Rotary Hoe Memorial may be viewed in the mall carpark on the site of the original works, at the corner of Argyle and Valetta Sts, Moss Vale. Erected in 1987, it features two of the early implements Cliff had built there in the 1920s.
- Berrima District Historical & Family History Society – compiled by PD Morton. Part 3 of a 3-part series.