Shanks of Arbroath was once a major engineering force.
It all started in 1801 when founder Alexander Shanks was born at Kinettles. His father was listed as a wright, and so an interest in engineering was not surprising.
He was granted his first patent for a flax spinner in 1834. In this period flax growing and linen production was an important aspect of country life.
Arbroath became the centre of his operations, with his first premises being Burns Road before the establishment of the more famous Dens Iron Works in 1854.
Very early on, Shanks became involved in lawnmower development.
Shanks developed a mower superior to Edwin Budding’s earlier design and designed it to be drawn by a pony.
Eventually motor mowers were produced.
Production of mowers continued for more than 100 years before the parent company of great rival Atco took on the mower business in 1952.
The legacy of lawn mowers did not end there as the later Vari Gang mower manufactured by successors Gilman Fraser continued to be made in Arbroath by Reekie’s even after the Dens Iron Works closed.
Because of such a rich heritage in lawn mower production the area around the factory was known locally as ‘the Grassie’.
While great work was going on over the years with mowers, Shanks was producing many other products: cranes and other construction and large engineering machines, steam engines, steam machinery and boilers, circular saws, large-scale glasshouses with cast-iron framing and even railway locomotives in the 1870s.
Such was the level of business at home and abroad that they opened a London office at Leadenhall Street in 1860.
A major part of Shanks’ work was related to engine manufacture, with production going back to the late 1800s.
Production of oil engines in the early years of last century was of huge importance. At this time the stationary engine was a vital power source, with no mains electricity on offer.
Indeed many engines would be designed for the purpose of generating electricity in both large and small-scale formats. Engines of all size and design were manufactured over the years, with industrial, marine and agricultural markets being some of the intended uses.
Documents show the diversity of uses for the engines and the locations listed are throughout the UK. However, a huge number of customers were local.
Some of the names on the list include George V for agriculture on the Balmoral estate and Lord Inchcape for pumping. Ernest Kerr of Harvieston at Dollar used an engine for providing electric lighting, while Thomas Wedderspoon used one at Castleton at Meigle for threshing.
Other users included Fife and Kinross Lunacy Board, Inverness Burgh Council and the Federated Malay State Government.
Two names strongly associated with agricultural engineering, Drake & Fletcher of Maidstone and F Randell Ltd of North Walsham in Norfolk, were other users.
With the arrival of mains electricity to many rural areas after the Second World War, engine sales were affected, and the sale of its lawnmower business led Shanks to look for other business avenues.
In 1951 it emerged that Aberdeen-based manufacturer Tullos Ltd was to close down after only a short time in existence. The Tullos-Wilmo fertilizer distributor was being made under licence from Danish designers AS Gyro, and an agreement was reached with Tullos for the manufacture of the machine to move to Arbroath.
Up to 600 of these machines were sold a year at their height.
Another successful line of implements was the MacRobert Potato Dresser. Again, agreement was reached with Tullos, who owned the rights, and 200 dressers a year were sold.
The machine carried the name Shanks MacRobert in recognition of the manufacturer and the designer one Leslie MacRobert.
Initially Jack Olding handled sales of Shanks farm machinery, but Shanks took this on themselves with far better results.
In 1955 an operation to help marketing and sales was set up at Carlby in Lincolnshire and operated under the name of Shanks Farm Implements Ltd.
One downside was a desperate desire to find a new invention which would boost sales but too many unproved designs were explored, costing the business a lot of money.
Some success was achieved by selling machines produced by outsiders, including the Mammen Precision Seeder also made by AS Gyro.
Other machines included the Shanter for cutting and scattering grass on paddocks, and the Cutter Collector for collecting silage into trailers.
They also made trailers and marketed the Thorup Clamp Coverer which spun earth up on to potato pits to insulate them.
One machine from this period was the Featherbed Potato Lifter designed by Eyemouth farmer John Rae.
The Featherbed Potato Lifter went into production, and an early machine went on trial at a college near Beverly in Yorkshire.
The machine was a horizontal conveyer mounted at right angles to the tractor powering it, sitting a few inches off the ground. This conveyor was driven over a drill of freshly dug potatoes.
Two people lay on their bellies and gathered the potatoes into the conveyor, which fed an elevator before being bagged off at the rear of the tractor.
At the trial two girls were chosen to pick the potatoes, they must have been lookers as they drew most of the interest from the farmers and the machine never caught on, with only around 50 made.
Tougher times came in the 1960s, and Carlby was closed down in 1965.
After unsuccessful attempts to change production at its foundry it, too, was sold in the same year to National Steel Foundry in Leven, owned by Lake & Elliot of Essex.
In 1968 the local concern of Giddings & Lewis Fraser took over Shanks in order to keep the 140 workers in jobs.
A year later the name was changed to Gilman Fraser Ltd, who manufactured car components, among other things.
In 1971 this company closed down and the site was sold to Halliburton, who later demolished it.
* Much more information is available in the superb book called Scotland’s Engineering Heritage: A History of Stationary Engine Makers of the East Coast, by John D Ellis BA.