Eben Ernest Hayes (4 February 1851 – 27 June 1933) was a New Zealand engineer and inventor who founded the Hayes Engineering works in

Oturehua The township of Oturehua is in the Ida Valley of the Maniototo, in Central Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand. The settlement stands at 500 metres above sea level, some 25 kilometres from Ranfurly, to which it is connected by both road a ...

, Central Otago. He developed a

wind turbine A wind turbine is a device that converts the kinetic energy of wind into electrical energy. Hundreds of thousands of large turbines, in installations known as wind farms, now generate over 650 gigawatts of power, with 60 GW added each year. W ...

and manufactured wind pumps and agricultural tools for farms.

Early life

Eben Ernest Hayes was born at Monks Kirby, England, on 4 February 1851, the first of 10 children of Ebenezer Hayes and Hannah Jones. Ernest was educated locally, then apprenticed as a

millwright A millwright is a craftsperson or skilled tradesperson who installs, dismantles, maintains, repairs, reassembles, and moves machinery in factories, power plants, and construction sites. The term ''millwright'' (also known as ''industrial mecha ...

, learning fitting and turning, remodelling machinery and dressing millstones. Hayes married Hannah Eleanora Pearson at Whitington,

Norfolk Norfolk () is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in East Anglia in England. It borders Lincolnshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the west and south-west, and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the Nort ...

, on 15 February 1881 and emigrated to New Zealand at

Port Chalmers Port Chalmers is a town serving as the main port of the city of Dunedin, New Zealand. Port Chalmers lies ten kilometres inside Otago Harbour, some 15 kilometres northeast of Dunedin's city centre. History Early Māori settlement The orig ...

on 14 November 1882.

Claudia Orange Dame Claudia Josepha Orange (née Bell, born 17 April 1938) is a New Zealand historian best known for her 1987 book ''The Treaty of Waitangi'', which won 'Book of the Year' at the Goodman Fielder Wattie Book Award in 1988. Since 2013 she has ...

Eben Ernest Hayes
on

Dictionary of New Zealand Biography The ''Dictionary of New Zealand Biography'' (DNZB) is an encyclopedia or biographical dictionary containing biographies of over 3,000 deceased New Zealanders. It was first published as a series of print volumes from 1990 to 2000, went online ...

website, retrieved 2010-01-21 Hayes settled in Central Otago, running flour mills and developing a farm with a small workshop, where he began to invent tools to help his farm work.

Inventor

In 1895, Hayes began to manufacture tools and agricultural equipment, establishing a workshop that became his engineering works. In 1910 Hayes built his first wind turbine to power the workshop; he replaced this with a

Pelton wheel The Pelton wheel or Pelton Turbine is an Impulse (physics), impulse-type water turbine invented by American inventor Lester Allan Pelton in the 1870s. The Pelton wheel extracts energy from the impulse of moving water, as opposed to water's dead w ...

in 1927. Apart from windpumps, developed in 1912, Hayes' principal inventions are various types of wire strainer, used for applying tension to wire fences.

New Zealand Historic Places Trust Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (initially the National Historic Places Trust and then, from 1963 to 2014, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust) ( mi, Pouhere Taonga) is a Crown entity with a membership of around 20,000 people that advocate ...

Pouhere Taonga: ''Hayes Engineering Works: the winds of time'' pamphlet, October 2009

Hayes Engineering

The original Hayes Engineering works in Oturehua was powered by a series of mechanical shafts, pulleys and belts. The works was purchased by the

Pouhere Taonga in 1975 and is maintained in a semi-working condition open to the public as an example of 19th century building and engineering. Hayes' farming products are now marketed by Tru-Test Ltd and include wire strainers, wire dispensers, fence post tools, crimping tools, crimping sleeves and farm gates.

Later life

Hayes achieved a national reputation for his products and an export market, then retired in ill health in 1926. The works were at the peak of production when he died at his home on 27 June 1933. Hayes' wife Hannah Hayes died on 2 June 1946 and the business shifted to

Christchurch Christchurch ( ; mi, Ōtautahi) is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand and the seat of the Canterbury Region. Christchurch lies on the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula on Pegasus Bay. The Avon Rive ...

in 1952.

E Hayes and Sons

The family firm's Invercargill branch, founded by Hayes' son Irving Hayes in 1934, still exists as a

hardware store Hardware stores (in a number of countries, "shops"), sometimes known as DIY stores, sell household hardware for home improvement including: fasteners, building materials, hand tools, power tools, keys, locks, hinges, chains, plumbing supplie ...

; memorabilia from Southland inventor and motorcyclist

Burt Munro Herbert James "Burt" Munro (''Bert'' in his youth; 25 March 1899 – 6 January 1978) was a motorcycle racer from New Zealand, famous for setting an under-1,000 cc world record, at Bonneville, on the 26th of August 1967. This record still st ...

(depicted in ''

The World's Fastest Indian ''The World's Fastest Indian'' is a 2005 New Zealand biographical sports drama film based on the Invercargill, New Zealand speed bike racer Burt Munro and his highly modified 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle. Munro set numerous land speed rec ...

'') is displayed in the store's museum.E Hayes and Sons
hardware store website, retrieved 2010-01-21

External links

Hayes Engineering Works
historic tourist attraction
Hayes Fencing Tools
fencing tool manufacturer
E Hayes and Sons
hardware store

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hayes, Ernest 1851 births 1933 deaths New Zealand inventors 19th-century New Zealand engineers 20th-century New Zealand engineers