Workforce at Hornsby and Sons of Grantham (1900)

It's all sunshine and smiles for the Lincolnshire agricultural equipment makers at home time.

The all-male workforce at this Lincolnshire factory put on a remarkable show of jollity for the filmmakers in this fine early example of Mitchell and Kenyon's many 'factory gate' films. Richard Hornsby had started out as a blacksmith in 1815. By 1900 the company that bore his name was making agricultural equipment and mobile steam engines used to drive threshers and other farm machinery.

Among Hornsby's innovations were caterpillar tracks for farm vehicles, which were later used by tanks in World War I.