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 ...
, 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 yea ...
and manufactured
wind pump
A windpump is a type of windmill which is used for pumping water.
Windpumps were used to pump water since at least the 9th century in what is now Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. The use of wind pumps became widespread across the Muslim world an ...
s and agricultural tools for farms.
Early life
Eben Ernest Hayes was born at
Monks Kirby
Monks Kirby is a village and civil parish in north-eastern Warwickshire, England. The population of the parish is 445. Monks Kirby is located around one mile east of the Fosse Way, around 8 miles north-west of Rugby, seven miles north-east of ...
, 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, 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 No ...
, 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 origi ...
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-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 weight like the tra ...
in 1927. Apart from windpumps, developed in 1912, Hayes' principal inventions are various types of
wire strainer, used for applying
tension
Tension may refer to:
Science
* Psychological stress
* Tension (physics), a force related to the stretching of an object (the opposite of compression)
* Tension (geology), a stress which stretches rocks in two opposite directions
* Voltage or el ...
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
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 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; memorabilia from
Southland Southland may refer to:
Places Canada
* Dunbar–Southlands, Vancouver, British Columbia
New Zealand
* Southland Region, a region of New Zealand
* Southland County, a former New Zealand county
* Southland District, part of the wider Southland Re ...
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 records ...
'') is displayed in the store's museum.
E Hayes and Sons
hardware store website, retrieved 2010-01-21
See also
*Project Hayes
Project Hayes was a controversial wind farm proposed for the Lammermoor Range of Otago, New Zealand. The project was developed by Meridian Energy from 2006 to 2012 at a cost of $8.9 million.
It had a proposed capacity of up to 630MW, at the time ...
, a wind power
Wind power or wind energy is mostly the use of wind turbines to generate electricity. Wind power is a popular, sustainable, renewable energy source that has a much smaller impact on the environment than burning fossil fuels. Historically ...
project named for Eben Ernest Hayes
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