About this objectAn A. & J. Dobbie’s Broadcast Seed Sower manufactured by A. & J. Dobbie in Adelaide, South Australia. The patent for A. & J. Dobbie’s Broadcast Seed Sower was granted on 4 January, 1877, with this example manufactured c. 1879. The seeder was subject to a patent dispute in 1880, as its designer Alexander Williamson Dobbie objected to James Hazel Adamson’s application for a patent on another South Australian designed Rotary Seed Sower.
The A. & J. Dobbie’s Broadcast Seed Sower was mounted on a horse-drawn wagon and powered by a chain drive attached to the wheel. Seed was fed into the funnel-shaped hopper. The chain drive causes the spinning disc beneath the hopper to rotate, with seed being broadcast onto a prepared seed bed. The paddock was then harrowed in order to cover the seed. This method of broadcast sowing was an alternative to the previous knapsack and wheelbarrow seeders as it allowed greater control over the placement of seed during sowing.
Alexander Williamson Dobbie was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1843. Arriving in South Australia in 1851, Dobbie started his own foundry business at the age of 19. A man of eclectic interests, he was variously a brassfounder, inventor, merchant, photographer, optician, pianist, gardener, astronomer, hypnotists and writer. As an inventor, Dobbie experimented with early telephones, phonographs and microphones. In keeping with the eclectic nature of his passions, Dobbie, a Methodist layman, also experimented with clairvoyance and was something of a local cause celebre, holding séances, hypnosis sessions, clairvoyance experiments and invention demonstrations at his house in College Park.
Historically, the A. & J. Dobbie’s Broadcast Seed Sower represents the work of a pair of prominent agricultural innovators in nineteenth century South Australia and testifies to the vigour with which agricultural innovation was pursued and contested during the Victorian period. Aesthetically, the item displays features that represent significant technological advances on previous sowing methods. The Dobbie’s Broadcast Seed Sower, in contrast to the Adamson’s Rotary Seed Sower (Section 4.1.3) is provenanced only to its manufacturer (A. & J. Dobbie, Adelaide), with no use history available. On the other hand, this item’s condition is superior to that of the Adamson’s sower. Together with the Adamson’s Rotary Seed Sower, this machine has a high level of interpretive capacity.
The Rural Technology collection seeks to preserve and display examples of innovative agricultural technology and these seed sowers effectively illustrate not just the physical features of various items of technology but also cultural context in which innovation occurs.
