For thousands of years, harvesting wheat was done with sickles and various other tools. The task required a large number of workers to be present in a single field simultaneously, as it was a slow and labor-intensive process for everyone involved.
In South Australia, wheat crops flourished, and by 1843, their growth became excessively tall combined with a general shortage of labor, making harvesting difficult to achieve while meeting the existing demand. A competition was initiated with the goal of finding an inventor who could create a machine capable of cutting wheat faster than manual harvesting.
Although no one won this competition, John Wrathan Bull’s entry sparked considerable interest. His machine featured a comb designed to grasp the wheat and a beater to thresh the grain effectively.
John Ridley enhanced Bull’s original design with a machine that harvested crops more quickly and efficiently than any worker could manage; however, it did not separate the chaff from the wheat heads during the process.
The design was continually copied and refined by others, leading to the widespread use of wheat stripping machines across Australia and the globe by the 1880s.
Alright, alright, I assume this is what you were expecting to see….