No less than three Sawyer-Masseys could be seen working together in the UK at the same place and time, at the Little Casterton working on the 17-18 September. Malcolm Robinson had the 1918 20-40 5270 running well and he was joined by Bob Parks’ 11-22 (number 5105), which spent all its working life in Canada.

The third was Gerald Gregory’s similar example (5239) that was part of the Dome Valley sale in Arizona some years ago. Sawyer-Massey Co came about in Hamilton, Ontario when three of the Massey family bought a stake in the well known L D Sawyer Co, that made steam portables, logging equipment, traction engines, road rollers, separators and similar equipment although by 1909-10 the company was fast adopting internal combustion power.

The Massey family was unhappy about this, perhaps seeing an eventual conflict of interest, and withdrew the financial backing, but the company name remained the same. The range of tractors that Sawyer-Massey made was reliable by the standards of the time and for a time it was Canada’s largest producer of tractors. However, it could not compete with Fordson and similar makes and tractor production finished in the 1930s, concentrating in later days on road making machinery.