page_title: James Allen Ransome
section_title: Ransomes and Sims
hierarchical_section_title: James Allen Ransome / Work / Ransomes and Sims
caption_attribution_description: English: Ransomes, Sims &amp; Jefferies Ltd. advertising poster, 1875
context_page_description: James Allen Ransome, known as Allen Ransome, was an English agricultural-implement maker and agricultural writer, known from his 1843 publication of The Implements of Agriculture. He was considered as "one of the leaders in a movement which, by bringing the science of the engineer to bear on the manufacture of implements for tilling the ground, has wrought, during the present century, an almost complete revolution in the practice of agriculture."
context_section_description: Very many who read this will themselves be able to speak to Allen Ransome as a man of business, who by his integrity and ability has justly reached the highest position. Many more will remember him, perhaps, as the most agreeable of companions and the most welcome of friends. Others, again, will associate his presence with those fluent, happy addresses he now and then rattles off; speeches so perfect in their style and delivery as to generally defy the art of the reporter. To appreciate such orations you must hear "Allen's" own musical voice, and watch the lighting up of his pleasant countenance. All, however, may not have enjoyed, as we have, the opportunity of seeing him in his own home, or following him through his own town. The kindly greeting and good word to everybody, and the deeds which carry out all these words imply. We question very much whether there be such another happy family in England as the thirteen or fourteen hundred men constantly employed in Messrs. Hansomes' works at Ipswich. What a treat it is to go over these—especially if you have the head of the house himself to guide
  you—and to note not only all the triumphs of art and skill, but to mark also how the heart has its due share in the business. To see, as you do, at every turn and in every face that the profits of the master are nowhere more studied than the comforts of his men!
  If we say more, we shall but make our hero mortal, and chronicle him, like most of us, as not proof against some little weakness or other. That of Allen Ransome, if such it be, is a national one – the love of a horse. The neatest hack at the Suffolk shows is almost sure to be "Ransome's." Himself a good horseman, and a good judge, no wonder he confessed, in the openness of his heart, as we once heard him, that "much as he loved a steam-engine, he loved a horse still more!"
  The firm of Ransomes was established in the last century by Mr. Robert Ransome, the grandfather of the subject of this notice. It was Robert Ransome who took out the first patent for manufacturing cast-iron chilled ploughshares, and thus by making the under-side much harder than the upper, preserving a sharp cutting edge to the share. The use of this process in turning out ploughshares is now almost universal, both in this country and America. The chief business of the establishment is still the manufacture of agricultural implements and machinery; although the firm is also extensively recognised in conjunction with railway works and improvements. Upwards of three thousand miles of " line" in the United Kingdom, and nearly two thousand more in other parts of the world, are now laid down and maintained on the patent known as Ransome and May's.
caption: Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies Ltd. advertising poster, c. 1875
exif: {}