This is the oldest surviving traction engine to show all the features that became standard practice for the following 60 years. It was designed by Thomas Aveling who was a pioneer in the application of steam power to ploughing, road haulage and driving agricultural machinery.

Traction engines were often used as a portable power source for various machines, driven by a long belt from the flywheel. The engines would travel from farm to farm at harvest time, where they would drive a threshing machine (which separated the wheat from the chaff and stalks). For many people, the traction engine was probably their first encounter with the 'machine age'. In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, published in 1891, Thomas Hardy described the harsh pace of the new machinery as Tess helped to feed corn into the threshing machine. 'It was the ceaselessness of the work that tried her so severely. For Tess there was no respite; for, as the drum never stopped, the man who fed it could not stop, and she, who had to supply the man with untied sheaves, could not stop either.'

Traction engines were often used to haul heavy industrial equipment and also pulled 'road trains' consisting of several wagons, although their speed was slow - about 4 mph (6.5 km/h).

Aveling and Porter exported steam engines all over the world from their factory in Rochester, Kent. The firm also pioneered the steam road-roller - really a traction engine with heavy rollers for wheels - and in this way steam literally 'paved the way' for the car and the diesel truck.

Inv. 1953-1