Shearer, David and John

David Shearer, son of a Scottish blacksmith, emigrated with his family to South Australia in 1852 at the age of two, settling in Clare, South Australia.

At the age of 14 David paid for his own schooling at Joseph Cole's Stanley Grammar School for a year, with wages saved from working as a farm-hand for two years. Over the next few years he worked as a blacksmith and wagon builder until he set up partnership with his brother John, opening up a blacksmith’s shop at Mannum on the River Murray. Here the brothers mended boats and broken tools, replaced horseshoes and made agricultural tools for the local farmers.

The Shearers made grubbing (digging) machines and fixed ploughs, scarifiers (a machine for loosening the soil), harrows (another machine for breaking up the soil) and strippers (a type of early harvesting machine) for the agricultural trade. Conditions were tough in the mallee bush, but resourceful and inventive to the last, the brothers improved the design and strength of these agricultural tools to help the local farmers.

In 1888 John invented a wrought-steel ploughshare, which was patented throughout Australasia; he developed special toughened steel which could be used for wagon making or agricultural toolmaking. During this time David Shearer was working on a pet hobby: to design a horseless carriage powered by steam, applying the principles he used to make his agricultural machines. By 1897 he was driving his steam-car round Mannum where most of the parts for the car had been manufactured; it lasted for journeys of 100 miles (161 km) and travelled at 15 miles an hour.

In subsequent years the Shearer brothers successfully opened up new factories and the business flourished. In World War I David Shearer & Co. made military equipment—munitions carriages, stirrups and harnesses. By 1927 the factory was enlarged for assembling and painting rooms ‘Header Harvester’ was placed on the market.

David Shearer joined the New South Wales branch of the British Astronomical Association in 1907 and built his own observatory and telescope. He painted, drew and studied phrenology (the shape of people’s heads). He died in 1936 and was buried in West Terrace cemetery. In 1972 David Shearer Ltd was taken over by Horwood Bagshaw Ltd, a company that makes agricultural machinery to this day.