Field Marshall

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For the Military rank, see Field Marshal.

The Field Marshalls were a range of British farm tractors manufactured by Marshall, Sons & Co. of Gainsborough in Lincolnshire.

The Field Marshall and its caterpillar tracked construction industry counterpart, the Track Marshall, were distinctive because of the use of a single-cylinder two-stroke diesel engine (of about 6 litre capacity) coupled to a very large flywheel. The Field Marshall tractors were commonly used to pull agricultural machinery such as threshing machines from site to site. Once in place, the Field Marshall would be used as the powerplant for the machine, its flywheel coupled by a large, flat drive belt.

Field Marshalls with tracks were produced under the Fowler name, being converted in the Fowler factory at Leeds. The first were designated the Fowler VF, later ones being VFAs.

Later the two firms would be drawn together and a large number of complicated take-overs by such firms as British Leyland led to the wheeled tractor concern being owned by Bentall Simplex in the early 80s. They brought with the company the whole Leyland wheeled tractor range which had previously been built at Bathgate (which itself had started out as a Nuffield Universal tractor site). These were then badge engineered into the 'Marshall' range. The company even designed and built some totally new tractors but unfortunately due to the high costs and consequently high asking price, the tractors didn't sell as well as they could and the company slipped under. In the end only the Track Marshall concern was left, although even this has since gone bankrupt.