About this objectThe double furrow plough (Plates 7 to 11) located at Stoke Stable was probably manufactured by George Fish of Bathurst during the late nineteenth century. This item is a long, heavy piece of machinery, and is likely to have required a team of three to four horses.
The current study attributes the Stoke Stable double furrow plough to George Fish of Bathurst on the basis of a number of physical features it shares with the single furrow George Fish mouldboard plough at Millthorpe’s Golden Memories Museum, specifically the identical design of the wheel / axle mountings and mouldboard fittings (Plates 72 and 73); and the similarity in size, weight and stilt configuration. Furthermore, the Stoke Stable receipt book - the former record keeping system employed at Stoke Stable during the 1970s and 1980s - indicates the donation of one George Fish mouldboard plough. No other plough at Stoke Stable displays such striking similarities to the known Fish plough at Millthorpe.
George Fish arrived in Australia in 1857 and established a blacksmithing firm in Bathurst (corner Bentinck and Russell Streets) in 1860. Common throughout the Central West, Fish Mouldboard Ploughs were a successful product and also figured at local ploughing competitions (Whiley 2009).
The double furrow plough is a form of tillage technology that came relatively late to New South Wales. Whereas earlier ploughs in the Australian colonies were largely single furrow and often un-wheeled, double furrow ploughs had become commonplace in South Australia and Victoria during the 1880s. This item harks back to Walter Blith’s seventeenth century double furrow plough and Ransome’s nineteenth century double furrow plough. Double furrow ploughs required three horses and were thus more economical than single furrow ploughs, which required two horses to plough one furrow (and thus four horses to plough two furrows).
The Stoke Stable Fish double furrow plough gains aesthetic significance as an example of technological progress that originated in the United Kingdom and was eventually adopted in the Australian colonies during the late nineteenth century allowing greater ploughing efficiency. As a locally manufactured item, it has local historical significance as evidence of the late nineteenth century introduction of innovative agricultural methods into NSW. Whilst the plough’s provenance is yet to be established firmly, it is likely that it was both manufactured and used in the Central West.
The lack of definitive provenance, however, detracts from the plough’s heritage significance. The plough is largely intact, missing one wheel and two components from the forward mouldboard. Corroded over the entire surface, this item requires conservation in order to stabilise the rust; it remains, however, a solid, representative example of the artefact type.
Kim Tuovinen 2010
