A 1:12 scale model of a McKay Sunshine stripper/harvester made by Bryan Young from an original in the Science Museum, Wroughton, Wiltshire. It took Bryan approximately 1600 hours to complete with steel, ramin and leather being the materials used.

The Sunshine is a significant item of agricultural machinery dating from the late 19th Century in Australia. Frustrated by the slow and laborious nature of harvesting wheat, Hugh Victor McKay, at the age of 18, assembled a stripper harvester on his father’s property at Drummarton, Victoria, Australia in 1884.

A year earlier the Victoria government had offered a reward for the first successful combined stripper harvester. McKay was one of a number of people to successfully design and construct such a machine. McKay built his harvesting machine, using parts from other harvesting machinery. During the harvest of 1884 he tested his design, and after making some alterations, set about raising the finances to patent it. On 24 March 1885 McKay’s patent for Improvements in and connected with harvesting machines was lodged.

Having secured the patent, McKay began taking orders and opened an office in Ballarat in 1888, and from 1890, began trading as the McKay Harvester Company. In 1892-3, the company was forced into liquidation due to an economic crisis. However, assisted by family and friends, McKay bought the company’s assets and began trading again.

By 1894 he had improved the design of his harvester. Inspired by a lecture given by visiting evangelist Dr Thomas De Witt  Talmage, McKay called his improved harvester ‘the Sunshine’ and the company expanded rapidly.

Between 1906 and mid-1907 McKay moved his factory from Ballarat to Braybrook Junction. In April 1907 Braybrook Junction was renamed Sunshine, after the Sunshine Harvester Works that dominated the township. The Works eventually covered 30.4 hectares and employed more than 3000 workers, the largest in Australia. In 1955 the factory was taken over by the Australian interests of Massey Ferguson. It ceased manufacturing in 1989, and the factory was demolished in 1992.