Frederick York Wolseley

Frederick York Wolseley was an Irish-born inventor of the mechanical sheep shearing machine, who lived from 1837 to 1899. Born at Kingstown, County Dublin, on 16 March 1837, he arrived in Melbourne in 1854 and worked on sheep stations in the Murray River and Murrumbidgee districts, eventually holding Toolong and later Euroka station in New South Wales. About 1868 he began experiments on a shearing machine, financed by his brother Garnet, and by 1872 had a working model. A patent for a horse-driven shearing device was granted in 1877, and in 1884 he and R. P. Park patented an improved apparatus with a cog-gear universal joint. Machines built with the mechanic John Howard outperformed hand blade shearing in public trials in 1885 and 1886, and in 1888 a New South Wales shed completed the first shearing done entirely by machine. In 1889 he founded the Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company in Birmingham, where Herbert Austin worked under him. He resigned as managing director in 1894 for health reasons and died in London in 1899.