State Library of South Australia

J. A. Shearer with his model horse-drawn plough [B 74439] • Photograph

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Summary

Gelatin silver cabinet card portrait of the inventor John Alexander Shearer (1877-1933), wearing a three-piece suit and a loose tie and broad-brimmed hat. He is holding a hammer in his right hand and is seated on a stool next to a wooden three-legged table which holds his model for a horse-drawn plough. The sign above the model reads: 'J.A. Shearer Maker/ Model Plough'. Photograph by E.W. Marchant and Son, Petersburg and Jamestown.

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Physical description

1 photograph : black and white ; 10.3 x 14.1 cm, on mount 16.4 x 10.6 cm

Dates / Publication details

Approximately 1910

Photographer

Marchant, E. W

Collection

Part of Portrait Collection

Subject

Shearer, John Alexander, 1877-1933.
Inventors -- South Australia.
Engineers -- South Australia.
Machinery -- Models
Clothing and dress -- South Australia

Catalogue record

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Historical information

John Alexander Shearer was born on 29 May 1877 in Gladstone, South Australia to Peter Shearer (b. c.1846) and his wife Barbara Agnes (nee Brown, b. c.1853). Shearer was well known in engineering circles as an inventor interested chiefly in agricultural machinery, and he held a number of important patents. He received early training with an implement manufacturer at Peterborough and later served with a number of firms, experimenting and making improvements on modern machines. He was well known for the model ploughs he constructed, which were featured at Adelaide exhibitions and won many prizes, including a silver medal in the Machinery Model section for a model of an 8-furrow stump plough at the South Australian Chamber of Manufacturers' Exhibition in April 1910. In later life he went into the real estate business, before retiring and again devoting his time to experimenting with agricultrual machinery. He died in his home in Everard Park on 25 December, aged 56. In 1899 Shearer married Mathilda Ida Louise Schmall, and together had six children: John Leslie (b.1899), Elsie Edith (b.1900) who married Leonard Claxton in 1928, Roy Clarence (b.1904), Clive Trafford (b.1909), Howard Kendall (b.1911), and Lloyd George (b.1916). Details from John Alexander Shearer's obituary in 'The Advertiser', 1 February 1934, page 10. John Alexander Shearer is not to be confused with John Albert Shearer (1845-1932), who was also an agricultural inventor who worked with his son at the South Australian firm of J&D Shearer, manufacturers of farm equipment at Mannum, and who was a friend of John Alexander Shearer.

Digitisation information

Date

22/09/2015

Format

image/tiff

Resolution

3,897 x 5,919 pixels (23.1 MP)

Size

69.22 MB

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