By Terrie Todd
Have you ever observed a robotic lawn mower performing its daily task and wondered how we got here? Given the fame of English gardens, we shouldn’t be surprised that the invention of the lawn mower is credited to an Englishman.
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| Edwin Beard Budding |
Edwin Beard Budding, born in 1796 in Gloucestershire, watched a machine in a fabric mill that trimmed the irregular nap from woolen cloth to a smooth finish. Like any engineer worth his pencil, he wondered if the idea could be adapted to cut grass on sports grounds and large gardens. He was granted a British patent in 1830, though it would be another ten years before a machine that could be pulled by animals was released.
His prototype was 19 inches wide and surprisingly similar to today’s mowers—minus the motor! His first two machines were purchased by Regent’s Park Zoological Gardens in London and to the colleges in Oxford. Budding partnered with another engineer named John Ferrabee, who financed the development and acquired the rights to manufacture and sell the devices.
In the 1850s, Thomas Green & Son of Leeds introduced a mower called the Silens Messor (“silent cutter”), which used a chain drive to transmit power from the rear roller to the cutting cylinder. Lighter and quieter than the existing gear-driven machines, they were more expensive. They proved to be a more efficient alternative, however, to scythes or grazing livestock. As lawn sports grew in popularity, so did the demand for mowers.
The first U.S. patent for a reel lawn mower was granted to Amariah Hills in 1868. The race was on! In 1870, Elwood McGuire of Richmond, Indiana, designed a lightweight, human-pushed lawn mower that met with success. In 1899, John Burr patented an improved rotary-blade lawn mower. He altered the wheel placement for better performance.
Gasoline-powered lawn mowers were first manufactured in 1914 by Ideal Power Mower Co. of Lansing, Michigan. Gang mowers, those with multiple sets of blades to cut a wider swath, were built in the United States in 1919 by the Worthington Mower Company.
The first “ride-on” mower was produced by Ransomes Engineering of Leicester, England, after World War I. The operator could ride behind animals that pulled the large, chain-driven machines.
Once engines became small and powerful enough to run the blades at high speeds, rotary mowers were developed in the late 1920s and early 1930s. With minor improvements along the way, lawn mowers have changed little in the intervening years. Major adaptations include electric mowers, both walk-behind and ride-on, and now robotic mowers that engineers like Edwin Beard Budding would never have believed possible.
Sources:
Edwin Beard Budding -
Wikipedia
Not a single incident of lawn-mowing occurs in The Reluctant Healer of Halifax, a novel of the Great Halifax Explosion of 1917. It’s a story of love, loss, faith, and honor set against Canada’s most devastating moment of the First World War.
where she lives with her husband Jon. A former church drama team leader and newspaper columnist, she’s also a frequent contributor to Guideposts Books, a mother of three, and grandmother of five.
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