Shawnee-Poole
Dumber designed by Harold Poole
1960 Listed as 'The Shawnee-Poole Division of Steel Fabricators (Cardiff) Ltd'.[1]
1966 Manufacturing of Earth Dumpers at Steelfab of Cardiff.[2]
2019 Memories of working for the company.[3]
I worked for Harold Poole for a short time in 1972. Poole had his original success in southern Africa, making bullock carts. These were steel frames and an axle to which the farmer would add wheels (e.g. old car wheels) and planks of wood. The drawbar would also be made by the farmer from a simple length of wood.
I believe Poole came to the UK in the 1960s. He lived at Aspenden House, in Aspenden (a small village near Buntingford). His team consisted of a design engineer, a draughtsman and a commercial man. They were located in rooms above the old stables.
Poole is best known for the Shawnee Poole dumper, designed by Poole and made by Steel Fab of South Wales. This was a “goose neck” design where a rear wheel of the tractor could fit under the goose neck drawbar and achieve a very small turning circle. However the clever part was how the drawbar was attached to the tractor. The coupling frame fastened to the two lugs under the axle which were intended for the bottom of the 3 point linkage in agricultural applications (eg mounting a plough). On some tractors e.g. Ford, these lugs were around half an inch forward of the centre line of the axle. This meant that whatever the load in the trailer the front of the tractor will never lift because there is always a small but positive weight transferred to it. One of the most dangerous aspects of driving agricultural tractors was under braking, when the weight of the trailer is thrown forward onto the tractor and, with a conventional drawbar, the couple induced lifts the front wheels off the ground – a most frightening scenario which killed many. This could never happen with the Shawnee Poole dumper. Construction companies loved the dumper because it was cheap to buy, cheap to run, easy to service, and very robust. The drivers hated them because they had previously driven lorries with nice heaters. Tractors started to be fitted in cabs in the late 1960s but these were for rollover protection – it would be many years before heaters were introduced.
Poole’s method of selling was by work study. His team would go to the customers agricultural venture and study the means of harvesting. For example he went to the Booker McConnel (now Booker Group) enterprise in Guyana where they were harvesting sugar cane. The result was the “Pallex” system. This was his standard goose neck coupling with a frame behind. Into the frame went a large cage. The cane was harvested and blown into the cage whilst on the move. Just like modern combine harvesters transfer the grain to an adjacent tractor and trailer. The cage for the cane was enormous, around 40 foot long, 6 foot wide and 8 foot high. The goose neck was offset to one side so that the tractor driver could easily place the cage alongside the harvester. When full the cage was taken to the nearby road and dropped – the frame was “U” shaped in that it had no back and the cage was lifted and secured in place with hydraulic rams. The cage was then picked up with a similar vehicle combination but with no offset to the goose neck – this one was in-line so that it could travel along roads. The system was simple but effective and saved drivers lives (the roads were hilly and conventional tractor trailers would lift the front wheels going – or not going – round bends at the bottom of hills). The harvest system was the main display on the Poole stand at the 1972 Royal Agricultural Show and attracted much interest.
Poole saw much potential for a smaller version of his Pallex system and developed many applications, such as a pallet for storing yachts out of the water. His vision and ego were impressive and he could really sell his ideas. In 1972 he started to expend by recruiting key people. One of his most impressive recruits was Miles Elliott from the Caterpillar Headquarters in Europe (I think based in Switzerland). Miles could sell and write in 3 languages. However some of the new recruits were not impressed when they arrived, and simply walked away. By September 1972 his vision was falling apart (and I left as well).