This advertising cover from the Lovelock Company, situated at 210 Roma Street, Brisbane had an illustration of the ‘Linke-Noack Earth Scoops’ and stated that Lovelock’s was for all kinds of Dam Sinking Machinery and all types of Earth Scoops, and a full range of Dam Sinking or Road Making Plows, etc. The cover was addressed to The President, The Wiard Plow Company, Batavia, New York, U.S.A. There was a roller cancel of BRISBANE/ 1 PM/ 29 JUN/ 1931/ QUEENSLAND with a partially legible slogan, on a blue 3d KGV Head (Figure 1).
The illustration shows a chaff-cutting plant in Chinchilla, Queensland, with filled sacks standing nearby. A sign painted on the fuel tank indicates that W. Lovelock & Co. Ltd. are the sole agents for the oil engine shown (Figure 2).
The letter sent from W. Lovelock & Co. Ltd. Machinery Specialists was found at a Queensland site regarding control of floods that are prone in Queensland. The letter was sent from the Company at 210 Roma Street Roma on 9th April 1929 and was received on 13/4/29 by The Officer in Charge, Stores Branch, Queensland Forest Service, Executive Buildings, Brisbane. The company’s banner was impressive and it described the company as being suppliers of Farm Implements, Agricultural and Dairy Machinery of Every Description.
The body of the letter is in response to a verbal request from the Officer in Charge for an apparatus to be used to pump water from creeks or water holes into a tank on a cart, and the apparatus appears to be assembled by the Lovelock Co. as a custom order. They quote for two different capacities, 75 gallons for £57.10.0 and for the 100 gallons, £59.10.0. There are several manuscript additions, and the one at lower right suggests that the 100 gallon cart should be ordered. (Figure 3).
When I first read the addressee’s name I thought that there was a typo mistake with the ‘z’ left out of ‘Wizard Plow Co.’ but the company was in fact the Wiard Plow Company, Batavia, New York, U.S.A. The company was well documented and there were a couple surprises found in my research. The first was a colourful advertising card for the company, the design of which was somewhat incongruous and possibly weird for advertising a plow manufacturing company (Figure 4).
The other surprise was that George Wiard was born in Ancaster, Canada (less than 5 km from where I now live) on March 11, 1833, a son of William and Lucinda Wiard. William was a native of Connecticut and in 1820 he went to Canada and began the manufacture of plows, and he was one of the pioneers in the manufacture of cast iron plows in Canada.. Before him, William’s father Thomas Wiard had been a blacksmith and he had made plows or parts thereof as early as 1804.
George Wiard entered an apprenticeship to the trade of moulder and eventually set up a plough making company that moved to Batavia , New York in 1876 where the Wiard Plow Company was incorporated.. The Wiard family had 4 generations in plow manufacture for 94 successive years, a record probably unequaled in the U.S.A.