Retirement
Fowler had worked so hard in developing his ideas that he had undermined his health. He was advised to take more rest and so he retired to Ackworth in Yorkshire, to recuperate. He was persuaded to take up hunting as a way of getting exercise and whilst out with the hunt he had a fall and sustained a compound fracture of his arm. Whilst recovering from this mishap, he developed tetanus and died on 4 December 1864, at his home in Ackworth. He died only months after his great triumph at the Newcastle ploughing trial, at the age of only thirty-eight.
His brothers Robert, William and Barnard had joined him in the business he had founded and they continued to run the firm after his death. Fowler’s method of ploughing continued to be used until well into the twentieth century when the internal combustion engine allowed the development of light but powerful tractors that could draw a plough behind them.
Read more about this topic: John Fowler (agricultural Engineer)
Famous quotes containing the word retirement:
“He who comes into Assemblies only to gratifie his Curiosity, and not to make a Figure, enjoys the Pleasures of Retirement in a[n] ...exquisite Degree.”
—Richard Steele (16721729)
“Douglas. Now remains a sweet reversion
We may boldly spend, upon the hope
Of what is to come in.
A comfort of retirement lives in this.
Hotspur. A rendezvous, a home to fly unto.”
—William Shakespeare (15641616)
“The student who secures his coveted leisure and retirement by systematically shirking any labor necessary to man obtains but an ignoble and unprofitable leisure, defrauding himself of the experience which alone can make leisure fruitful.”
—Henry David Thoreau (18171862)