Historical Engineering Marker - Headlie Taylor HeaderPrint Page

The Historical Engineering Plaque is dedicated to the invention of the Headlie Taylor ' Header'. 

The header on exhibition at the museum was built by members of the Henty branch of the United Farmers and Woolgrowers Association in 1969. For 12 months they collected old machines and parts wherever they could find them. Frank Howard from Milbrulong near Lockhart, who actually worked on one of the headers, supervised the construction. The header was originally located in the Memorial Park. 

The Institution of Engineers Australia, through its Heritage Committees, established the Australian Historic Engineering Plaquing Program to acknowledge past engineering achievements and to draw public attention to the significant contributions they have made to society.The Plaquing Program is a means of bringing public recognition to significant historic engineering works and the engineers who created them. The Program is intended to contribute to the conservation of Australian engineering heritage.

Headlie Shipard Taylor (1883-1957) was an agricultural machinery designer who worked for H.V. McKay (later H.V. McKay Massey Harris) from 1914-1954. His major inventions were a header harvester in 1914 and the `Sunshine` auto-header, the first self-propelled harvester to be manufactured in large numbers, in 1924. In September 1914 Headlie  Taylor displayed his wonderful invention publicly for the first time at the Henty Show. It was first known as the "Reaper Thresher". Then in the 1920s its name was changed to the "Sunshine Header" and it continued to evolve and advance with the times, finally developing into a machine capable of harvesting a variety of seeds and changing the world of agriculture forever.

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