P.O. Box 284 Red Cliffs, Victoria 3496 Australia
Red Cliffs is a small, friendly country town with lots of
sunshine and a laid-back country atmosphere, nestled amidst acres
of irrigated vineyards, oranges, avocados, almonds, asparagus, and
other horticulture in the northwest of the State of Victoria,
Australia. It was founded after World War I as a soldier settlement
area, the first-allocation of blocks taking place in 1921. The
early settlers gave their hearts and souls to the district with a
courage and determination that laid the foundation upon which
modern Red Cliffs is founded. And throughout the century,
agricultural machinery has played an important part in the lives of
the local horticulturists. It was inevitable that the tractor
became the modem symbol of farm mechanisation.
The first internal combustion powered tractors arrived in
Australia at the start of the 20th century. They were crude, but
they heralded a new age and revolutionized farming practices.
Within two decades tractors from North America and Europe flooded
into the country, and Australia also established an indigenous
tractor industry with highly comparable machines. However, the
early tractors were noisy, cantankerous and uncomfortable.
Today one can find a wealth of old tractors of all sorts in
Australia that are highly coveted by overseas collectors. They are
scattered on farms in various degrees of decay and have been
collected together in museums all around the country. Dedicated
fanatics who have collected and restored tractors delight in
displaying their machines at the number of tractor and vintage
machinery rallies that are held all over Australia.
The McDonald engineering business in Victoria commenced in 1903,
when brothers Alfred Henry and Ernest John McDonald set up a
workshop in Melbourne which they registered under the business name
of A.H. McDonald & Co. In 1908 they launched the first
Australian tractor, known as the McDonald Model EA, followed by
Model EAA. It possessed only one gear with a forward speed of 2.25
m.p.h. And it is the McDonald connection with ‘Big Lizzie’
that is of interest to Red Cliffs.
Big Lizzie is probably one of the physically-largest tractors
ever built in Australia, a most remarkable lady, who today resides
in Barclay Square, Red Cliffs. She was the brain-child of Frank
Bottrill, who utilised all his inventive ingenuity and perseverance
to turn out a remarkable mechanical monster that laid its own track
as it went along. In 1915, he began to construct the frame and
assembled the tractor himself at a yard rented near the A.H.
McDonald & Co. works in Melbourne. Gears and other machine
components were supplied by the McDonald Company.
She was a 34 foot long, 11 foot wide, 45 ton tractor, powered by
a 60 HP Blackstone single cylinder crude oil engine. Big Lizzie was
equipped with the Dreadnought Wheel, patented in 1906, which was
considered superior to a similar concept, the Boydell wheel used in
England. The diameter of the flywheel was seven feet, and the drive
wheels were 4 feet in diameter. Destined for work in the wool
industry at Broken Hill, she drew two wagons some thirty-two feet
long, built to carry 35 tons each. Three thousand gallons of fuel
and 300 gallons of water were housed in tanks, both on the engine
and wagon. The oil cost approximately four pence per gallon then.
Lizzie sported several gears, four forward and two reverse, and her
forward speed reached the great maximum of two miles per hour.
By 1915 the machine was ready to travel. She contained the
family home as she set out on the long trek to Broken Hill,
approximately five hundred and sixty-five miles away. As the great
monster lumbered from her backyard in Richmond, she presented a
remarkable picture to the startled inhabitants of Melbourne. With
queenly dignity she passed through the city streets, half tank,
half house, complete with children, chooks and a cow, trailing a
convoy of wagons behind her, the like of which had never been seen
before. At Kerang, Bottrill was offered a remuneration haulage
contract which he gladly accepted, and it was a further six months
before he was on his way again. During the epic 21 months journey,
she encountered many problems and setbacks, and when she finally
reached Ouyen, Bottrill was advised by two very authoritative
railway workers that there was no way in the world that such a
heavy engine would make her way through the very heavy sandhills of
Hattah, and if he wished to reach Mildura he would need to take
another route. However, he had every confidence in his magnificent
machine, and would not admit to the possibility of Big Lizzie even
faltering through the sand hills, let alone being unable to conquer
them.
His confidence in the machine was fully justified, and Big
Lizzie sailed triumphantly across the ‘Big Sister’ sand
hills at Hattah, but the severity of the test was shown by the
marks gouged in the sand by the huge engine and were still to be
seen there years later.
At Mildura, she met the worst setback she had encountereda
Murray River floodand she was forced to remain on the Victorian
side of the river. She obtained work carrying wheat from the
surrounding wheat farms. The largest load she carried at one time
was 899 bags of wheat in Merbein, and she used up to four gallons
per mile of crude oil with a full load up. At the end of World War
I she obtained a contract clearing land for the Soldier Settlement
at Bird-woodton, and then moved on to the Red Cliffs Settlement
where she did the bulk of her work. In 1924 Big Lizzie set off for
Glendenning Station in Victoria’s western district where she
was actively engaged in work until 1929. For years she rusted away
under a huge red gum on the property until the Red Cliffs Jubilee
committee in 1971 approached the owners with a view to bringing her
back to Red Cliffs. A deal was clinched, and she was transported
back to Red Cliffs on a low loader. She is once again a resplendent
queen, that remarkable lady having been restored almost to her
former glory. Minus her house and trailing only one wagon, back in
the district where she belongs, she holds audience with tourists
under the shade of a jacaranda tree. So what more appropriate name
to call a Red Cliffs Tractor Festival than Big Lizzie.
The Red Cliffs Big Lizzie Vintage Tractor Festival is to be held
at Red Cliffs (near Mildura) Victoria, as a follow-on from the
spectacular ‘Flood of FergiesRed Cliffs to Wentworth’ held
in 1996. In that year, 50 years of the Ferguson tractor was
celebrated all around the world, and we were delighted to take part
as the Australian connection in those celebrations. The Ferguson
TE20 tractor was highly popular in the irrigation district of
Sunraysia because of its versatility, reliability and great
manoeuvrability in confined spaces and was ideally suited to vine
and citrus growing. In 1956 it was the right machine at the right
time. The revolutionary Ferguson three-point linkage system
increased efficiency to such an extent that the original Fergies
are still being used fifty years on. The Ferguson system was based
on its adaptability to the horticultural industry. After World War
II, thousands of the little gray Fergies were sold in Australia.
Over a period of 10 years, the local Ferguson dealer, the late Syd
Mills, sold more Fergies than any other dealer in Australia. At the
sales peak, he officially sold 976 tractors from the Victorian
dealers as well as hundreds more that he acquired from South
Australia and New South Wales. It was the most important icon on
the Sunraysia agricultural scene.
During the 1956 flood it was the little grey Fergie, because of
its adaptability, that was used on top of the levee banks, where it
brought in scooploads of fill and padded down the banks at the same
time. In 1957 a monument to the little grey Fergie was erected at
the town of Wentworth. It is a cast miniature of the Fergie
standing on a rock cairn. A plaque carries the story of how
Wentworth was saved by scores of tractors working day and night on
the levee banks encircling the town. It is the only monument to a
tractor in the world.
In 1997 the Promotions Committee placed a Tourism submission
(‘Flood of Fergies’) in the Ansett Victorian Tourism
Awards, and another in the Inaugural Mildura 1997 Tourism Awards.
It was named a finalist in the Ansett Victorian Tourism Awards
(Significant Regional Festival or Event), and won its section in
the Mildura Tourism Awards.
So building on the Flood of Fergies event, the Committee intends
to utilise Big Lizzie, which is known throughout the tractor world.
In planning a vintage tractor event, the Committee reflects the
cultural importance played by the tractor in both horticultural and
dry land farming in the region.
The Festival will run from Friday September 4, to Sunday
September 6, 1998. The three-day tractor event involves vintage
tractors of all makes incorporating ‘Fun with Fergies,’ a
swap meet (vintage tractor and Land Rover parts only), and in
cooperation with the Dareton Tractor Pull, the National Bulldog
Championships. The Festival is open to all makes and types of
tractors prior to 1959, and those entering the National Bulldog
Championships are limited up to and including 1955. Organisers are
also looking for the oldest tractor (any make) in Australia to take
part. In the National Bulldog Championships, classes for the
tractor pull are based on horsepower for all Bulldogs produced
until 1955. Later models of Bulldogs, though they cannot enter in
the National Bulldog Championships, are eligible to enter in the
Open pull against other makes of tractors.
We have a particular interest in the KL Bulldog, which was built
in Australia. During World War II the Lanz Mannheim Works in
Germany was destroyed. After the war, Kelly &. Lewis
established a separate division, KL Tractors Ltd. at Springvale,
Victoria, to produce the KL Bulldog tractor, in spite of the fact
they had no agreement with Lanz to manufacture the tractors. There
were many delays, and production did not commence until late 1949.
Because it was thought that farmers would not like to own the first
tractors out of the factory, the first KL Bulldog was given the
serial number of 1001. A committee member of the Red Cliffs Big
Lizzie Vintage Tractor Festival is the proud part-owner of 1002.
This was picked up at a sale on a mallee farm some years ago, and
it took part in the ‘Flood of Fergies’ 70 odd kilometre
trip from Red Cliffs to Wentworth. I am not sure what state the
driver was in at the end of it! Kelly & Lewis wound down
production of the KL’s about 1954. In all, around 900 were
produced, of which only 600 are believed to be in Australia
today.
We are also celebrating 50 Golden Years of Land Rover in
Australia, with events included specifically for Land Rovers. There
are approximately about 800-1000 Land Rovers in Australia, and it
is hoped that many will find their way to Red Cliffs in September.
As well as an old-fashioned road trial, events will include
obstacle courses, precision driving, trailer backing, tilt board
and agricultural work.
Our aim is to break the record for the largest number of
Ferguson vintage tractors together at one time in the Guiness Book
of Records, and to create an Australian record for the largest
number of vintage tractors (all makes) together at one site.
On Thursday, September 3, a Briefing Dinner will be held at the
Red Cliffs Football Club Rooms, plus a video showing of Flood of
Fergies.
Friday, tractors depart on a tractor trek through river country
to Lindemans Winery, a meander through horticultural properties
containing wine grapes, oranges, persimmons, almonds and asparagus
to Thompson’s Lake for lunch. After lunch, tractors travel
through wheat country to a private pad dock of approximately
300-400 acres, where they will remain overnight. Whilst the
tractors are taking their leisurely trek through a variety of
country, the Land Rovers will be participating in an old fashioned
road trial. A river cruise on the PV Rothbury for families and
friends of the drivers will also leave the Red Cliffs mid-morning
and head upstream, the first time a pleasure cruise has operated in
this direction.
Saturday and Sunday include a tractor pull, ploughing, tilt
board, novelty events, a grand parade, National Bulldog
Championships, ‘Fun With Fergies’, a hot air balloon
display, horse drawn vehicle rides, and several exciting and unique
tractor events. Simultaneously, specific Land Rover events will
take place. A variety of mouth-watering food stalls, plus arts and
craft stalls, plant and souvenir stalls will tempt the visitor. On
Saturday evening, a Bush and Folk Music Concert will be held on
site.
The Red Cliffs Big Lizzie Tractor Festival invites visitors from
all over to join us and partake in good old-fashioned Australian
country hospitality. We welcome you to Red Cliffs and guarantee
that you will have a fantastic three days with us. Help make this
the greatest tractor event in Australia!!
