#15242, Alfred DAWSON

Alfred's father, William Dawson's family occupied the windmill and its Mill House at 113 Playford Road, and it is thought a second mill at 1 Foxhall Road. He was a miller, a corn merchant, and a farmer of some 80 acres. He married twice and his second wife Elizabeth Fayers  bore him 13 children. The 7th child and 5th son Alfred) took over as miller when his father died but by then the mill was powered alternately by steam as well as wind. He had the same problem as wind turbines have today (but without the contract that pays the owner whether the wind blows or not!). It was possibly the installation of steam power which led to the formation of A Dawson & Co, in 1898, contractors for steam rolling, motor haulage, steam ploughing, cultivating, harrowing, mole draining, threshing, seed drawing, clover hulling, chaff cutting, sawing, self-binding, and reaping. Alfred Dawson & Co (Rushmere) of Ipswich and Kesgrave majored on road engineering and ploughing and at one time operated 37 traction engines and rollers. Two ploughing engines were sold to A H Cobbold of Claydon in 1900 and a further two in the 1930s. They were always operated in pairs, one each end of the field, the plough being hauled in between.