Threshing machine
Trilladora mecánica
- Date
- 1786 · confidence high
- Place
- Houston Mill, East Lothian, Scotland, United Kingdom
- Credited to
- Andrew Meikle
- People
- 👤 Andrew Meikle1719–1811
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
A machine with a rotating drum that separated grain from straw, replacing winter work with the flail. It was the first agricultural machine to cause mass unemployment.
Meikle was a millwright at Houston Mill; the patent dates from 1788.
What it led to
- The Swing Riots in England (1830) against threshing machines
- Mobile steam threshers and travelling threshing gangs
- Agricultural mechanisation and the displacement of farm labourers
- The combine harvester
Built on
- Watermill (water wheel)c. 250 BCE
- Rotary winnowing fancentury I a.C.
- Flail
- Hydraulic mill
Made possible
- Combine harvester1836
- Self-propelled combine harvester1911–1938
- Portable steam threshing machine