An unlikely Ulster humanist? Harry Ferguson’s great adventure

By Owen Morton

Owen lives in Sutton, a coastal suburb in North Dublin, Republic of Ireland.

Author's introduction

Ulster/Northern Ireland humanism holds a special fascination for me, given the Province’s pervasive fundamentalism. Even ‘implied humanism’ is a joy to observe. Such a person, it appears, was the Ulster-born engineer and tractor pioneer Harry Ferguson. My article recalls a little-known letter Ferguson wrote during a transatlantic voyage in 1921. While he did not identify as a humanist, his reflections on cooperation, equality, responsibility, and the pursuit of human happiness echo themes that run through the Enlightenment tradition and modern humanist thought. Ferguson was influenced by fellow County Down man and Enlightenment philosopher Francis Hutcheson, as well as by Adam Smith, who was mentored by Hutcheson.

I revel in the challenge of raising awareness – among both fellow UK and Southern Irish citizens — of under-the-radar freethinkers from this commonly maligned, commonly scoffed-at neck of the woods. And perhaps I come to this with my own perspective: I’m a Dublin Christian Brothers’ lad – formed in a Catholic educational tradition shaped by figures like Daniel O’Connell, ‘the Liberator’, who secured civil rights for Irish Catholics. Mainstream humanism in the Republic often shows little interest in Northern affairs, and vice versa. That makes figures like Ferguson all the more intriguing – and worth rediscovering.

‘To work for the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the ideal, and when the world realises the happiness that lies there, we will care less about the next world and be happier in this.’

Harry Ferguson statue near Dromore and Hillsborough, County Down, near Belfast. Creative Commons image by Albert Bridge. Linked to source.

There is often as strong a signal in what is not said as in what is said. That thought came to mind when reading an extraordinary private letter written by Ferguson during a transatlantic voyage in 1921. Across eighteen pages of reflection on work, responsibility, equality and human happiness, Ferguson never once invokes God, church, redemption or scripture. For a man raised in a deeply religious rural culture in County Down, the omission is striking.

The letter, titled The Great Adventure, was written during a seven-day Atlantic crossing to New York, likely a Cunard vessel such as the Aquitania or Mauretania, whose week-long voyages carried many British industrialists to New York. Ferguson was travelling to the United States to pursue what he hoped would become a transformative partnership with the American industrialist Henry Ford – a venture that would eventually revolutionise agricultural machinery.

Writing from the relative comfort of a first-class cabin, Ferguson allowed himself the luxury of reflection. What emerges is not a business memorandum but something closer to a diary: a thoughtful meditation on work, responsibility, cooperation and the conditions for human happiness.

The story of how the letter survived is itself an intriguing one.

The grandfather of my friend and Sutton neighbour Niamh Boylan, a Mr Summerfield, served as Dublin-based Company Secretary to Harry Ferguson Ltd. At some point a carbon copy of Ferguson’s letter – dated Friday 3 June 1921 and addressed affectionately to ‘My dear Maureen and everybody’ – passed across Summerfield’s desk. In time the copy came into Niamh’s possession.

To my knowledge, this may be the only surviving copy outside Ferguson’s own family, making it a small but fascinating historical discovery. A summary of the letter entered the public domain when extracts I sent to journalist Frank McNally appeared in An Irishman’s Diary some years ago. Apart from that brief appearance, its contents have remained largely unknown.

Ferguson was writing at a moment of great uncertainty. The year 1921 was marked by political upheaval in Ireland and rapid industrial change elsewhere, while Ferguson himself was crossing the Atlantic in pursuit of a business alliance that might determine the future of his engineering ideas.

The stakes were not lost on him. Reflecting on the risks ahead, he wrote:

‘A false step now might mean the loss of all that we have toiled and fought during all these years. I feel a responsibility because such a loss would not be all mine. I’m here not in my own interests alone, and not alone in the interests of the Shareholders and Directors. Without the help of all we could not have succeeded as we have done, and all must share in proportion to their worth.’

What is striking here is Ferguson’s sense of responsibility extending far beyond personal success. The enterprise he envisages is not merely a vehicle for profit but a cooperative endeavour. Indeed he describes his ideal company in almost utopian terms:

‘It has been my life’s dream to be head of a Company in which all are pulling together for the success of all; to be at the head of a partnership of men and women which will ‘do things’. A company wherein good feeling, good fellowship, cooperation and real friendship is the foundation.’

Francis Hutcheson (1694–1746), born in County Down, was a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. Public domain.

Such sentiments resonate strongly with the ethical outlook associated with the Enlightenment — particularly the idea that social arrangements should aim at the greatest happiness of the greatest number. That phrase was first articulated by the philosopher Francis Hutcheson, himself born in County Down only a few miles from Ferguson’s own birthplace, albeit nearly two centuries earlier. Hutcheson would later influence Adam Smith, whose reflections on markets and moral sentiment helped shape modern economic thought. Whether consciously or not, Ferguson’s reflections seem to echo that tradition:

‘Work, accomplishment, is the foundation on which we must build if we are to attain things that are worth having in this world… The man who toils for more wealth in gold is as bad as the idler because he toils for his own happiness alone.’

And again, with admirable clarity:

‘To work for the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the ideal, and when the world realises the happiness that lies there, we will care less about the next world and be happier in this.’

Here Ferguson expresses an ethic firmly rooted in this world – one concerned with human wellbeing rather than supernatural reward. His reflections also touch on the question of equality. Ferguson recalls with pride his support for women’s suffrage, while acknowledging that the vote alone did not secure genuine freedom for women:

‘I worked hard in favour of votes for women, and I am proud of what I did. But woman is far from free yet. The vote does not make her free. It is only a means by which she may become free. Every girl in business is helping to make women free because she is helping to break the man-made laws which made woman an outcast in business.’

This is a striking sentiment from a businessman writing in 1921.

Perhaps Ferguson would never have described himself as a freethinker or humanist. Yet the values expressed in his reflections – cooperation, responsibility, equality and the pursuit of human happiness in this world – resonate strongly with that tradition.

What emerges from The Great Adventure is therefore not simply the voice of an inventor or industrialist, but of a thoughtful observer reflecting on the ethical foundations of work, enterprise and human flourishing. And if these reflections remind us that humanist values sometimes appear in the most unexpected places, then perhaps that is discovery enough.

More information

Harry Ferguson – Wikipedia