From:Golden Memories Millthorpe Museum

Name/TitleStripper Harvester

About this objectNo 2. H. V. McKay 'Sunshine' Stripper Harvester S.N. 243916
C. 1910
This H.V. Mckay Sunshine stripper harvester was owned and used by Charlie and Russell Kingham of Millthorpe. Four horses pulled the machine, it harvested 70 to 100 bags of oats per day, covering 4 to 6 acres.
The stripper harvester beat the heads off the standing grain stalks with what was called a 'rotary knife', it was then 'threshed & cleaned' with the aid of the drum fan and sieves, the clean grain being delivered to the grain box on the machine ready for bagging. Charlie Kingham and his brothers farmed on Charlie Kingham's property on
the Forest Road Millthorpe. He bought “The Meadows”
off his future father in law before he married Lorna Scarr DONATED BY CHARLIE KINGHAM 1965
in 1939, and spent the remainder of his life farming there,
raising prime lambs, cattle and cropping.

Charlie Kingham together with Rev. David Nicholas were instigators of the Millthorpe Museum, Charlie was foundation President and remained president until his death in
1982, some 18 years later.


The Stripper Harvester revolutionised the harvesting the of grain crops. Up until the 1880s the harvesting process was a very labour intensive operation, it included stripping the heads off the grain with the stripper, winnowing the stripped material, to remove the straw and husks and bagging the grain. The stripper combined these three operations in one pass through the standing crop.
James Morrow an Irish Engineer built one of the first Stripper Harvesters in Australia winning a 50 pound prize in 1883 for his invention, he formed a partnership with Joseph Nicholson in Melbourne to manufacture these machines, many of these machines were exported overseas. James Morrow died in 1910 and the manufacturing business was wound up.
Hugh Victor McKay built his first prototype Stripper Harvester in 1884 at Drummartin in Victoria. McKay's first harvesters were made under contract in Melbourne and Bendigo, and from 1888 in Ballarat. .
Despite McKay’s boast that these machines were the first successful stripper harvesters on the market and that he had invented the first machine, James Morrow had actually perfected, patented and exhibited the a stripper harvester a year earlier.
In 1893 trading as The Harvester Co. he built an improved harvester and marketed it as the 'Sunshine' after the theme of an address given by an visiting American evangelist, Dr Thomas de Witt Talmage.

Business increased dramatically for McKay, from 12 machines built in 1895, to 500 built in 1901. McKay and "Sunshine" became household words in the Australian grain industry. He began exporting machines to South Africa, with massive exports to North and South America. In the 10 years 1902 to 1912 some 25,000 of these Sunshine Stripper Harvesters were exported to 14 different countries around the world. McKay's overseas trade earnings made him the largest exporter in the Commonwealth by 1904.
The Sunshine Harvester Works was for many years the largest factory in Australia covering 30 acres and employing 2500 workers. By 1920 nearly two-thirds of the wheat, oats and barley in Australia was harvested with Sunshine machines.
Many of these machines were being used by farmers until the 1940s, they were replaced by the header. (see No 163)
No 2. H. V. McKay 'Sunshine' Stripper Harvester
S.N. 243916
C. 1910
These machines were used World Wide
H.V, McKay was a farmer inventor, in the 1880s he was one of the first men to build a machine that successfully combined the operation of taking the grain heads off wheat or oats and ‘cleaning’ separating the straw and husks from the grain.
This operation used to take two machines, namely the stripper gathered the heads of grain, this material then had to be put through a Winnower to separate the grain from the rubbish. A very labour intensive operation.

This H.V. Mckay Sunshine stripper harvester was owned and used by Charlie and Russell Kingham of Millthorpe. Four horses pulled the machine, it harvested 70 to 100 bags of oats per day, covering 4 to 6 acres.

The stripper harvester beat the heads off the standing grain stalks with what was called a 'rotary knife', it was then 'threshed & cleaned' with the aid of the drum fan and sieves, the clean grain being delivered to the grain box on the machine ready for bagging. Charlie Kingham and his brothers farmed on the Forest Road
Millthorpe.

He bought “The Meadows off his future father in law before he married Lorna Scarr in 1939, and spent the remainder of his life farming there, raising prime,
lambs, cattle and cropping.

Charlie Kingham together with Rev. David Nicholas were instigators of the Millthorpe Museum, Charlie was foundation President and remained president until his death in 1982, some 18 years later.

Object numberRT71-2

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