Rex Paterson

[1] He spent some time learning technical drawing in the office of his uncle Alliott Verdon Roe, the aviation pioneer, before leaving to farm in Canada.

A move to the free-draining chalk downland of Hampshire enabled him to start milking cows using the system developed by Wiltshire dairy farmer Arthur Hosier.

His entrepreneurial drive and evident success, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s, contrasted strongly with the generally depressed state of British farming, and made him a source of inspiration to younger innovative farmers in the 1950s and 1960s.

He offered his workers greater responsibility and motivated them by bonus payments, at a time when other farmers were trying to solve problems through stricter management control.

He was a pioneer in the making of silage in Britain and to enable this he designed the Buckrake and the Muckrake, which exploited the hydraulic three-point linkage invented by Harry Ferguson.