The Headlie Taylor Heritage Project
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The Headlie Taylor Heritage Project aims to recognise the historical contribution to agriculture of Headlie Taylor, who was Australia’s greatest inventor in the field of agricultural machinery. This farmer’s son, who left school at the age of 14, developed the header harvester and laid the foundation of mechanical harvesting of grain which was adopted in Australia and throughout the world. The header harvester was developed in a farm blacksmith shop at Henty in southern NSW at a time when the young nation of Australia was patriotically finding its identity.
Headlie Taylor went on to make many inventions in Australian agriculture and he participated in the great advance of farming as Australia became one of the great food exporters of the world. He worked and remained at the Sunshine Harvester Works for the remainder of his working life.
Major modifications and inventions included grain harvesting machinery for the new rice industry, pasture renovators, power take off drives for headers and binders, cutter bars and pick up fronts, mechanisation of the flax industry and sand elevators for bagging, as part of the war effort and the re-design of the auto header in 1953.
HEADLIE TAYLOR SCULPTURE |
The Headlie Taylor Heritage Project has completed a life size plus, bronze sculpture to recognise the achievements of Headlie Taylor. This magnificent portrait by Melbourne sculptor Paul Smits completes the first stage and brings large scale public art to Henty.
The project will also provide an ongoing Memorial Scholarship to support a student in agriculture to parallel the endeavours of Headlie Taylor and his development of the Header Harvester.
The project team are currently fund raising $100,000 and will continually monitor interest rates and partnership arrangements to provide a suitable Memorial Scholarship in Headlie Taylor’s name.