How an 1830 grass-cutting machine helped write the rules of modern sport
Before 1830, a smooth lawn meant a scythe or a flock of grazing animals. Then Edwin Budding of Stroud patented a push-along machine with a spinning cylinder of blades. Its even, closely cut turf made proper pitches, courts and bowling greens possible, and flat, uniform playing surfaces helped football, lawn tennis and bowls settle their modern rules.
Budding built his first mower to tidy sports grounds and large gardens, and it looks startlingly familiar. A wrought-iron frame about 19 inches wide carried a rear roller that drove the cutting cylinder through cast-iron gears, a second roller set the cutting height, and the clippings flew forward into a tray. Users soon found it needed a front handle so a second person could help pull. Among the first buyers were the zoological gardens in Regent's Park and the Oxford colleges. Budding's backer, John Ferrabee, cleverly licensed other makers to copy the design, and Ransomes of Ipswich was building mowers by 1832.
Improvements came steadily. In the 1850s Thomas Green and Son of Leeds sold a quieter chain-driven model called the Silens Messor, Latin for silent cutter. Ferrabee's firm turned out more than 5,000 machines before stopping in 1863, and James Sumner of Lancashire patented a steam mower in 1893, a heavy beast that needed hours to build pressure. Petrol engines followed, with Ransomes producing one in 1902. In Britain the Atco Standard of 1921 became the first engine-powered mower truly made in bulk: just 900 were built that first year at 75 pounds each, but within five years output reached tens of thousands.
Americans had their own pioneers. Amariah Hills received the first United States patent for a reel mower on 12 January 1868, and Ideal Power Mower of Lansing, Michigan, began making gasoline mowers in 1914 from a patent by Ransom E. Olds. The spinning single-blade rotary mower had to wait for small, powerful engines. In Australia, Mervyn Victor Richardson built his first from scrap in his Sydney garage; Victa mowers went on sale in 1952 and became such a national icon that massed replicas appeared at the Sydney Olympics opening in 2000. Flymo added the hovering air-cushion mower in 1964.
The old reel design still wins on quality. A well-adjusted cylinder mower slices grass cleanly, like scissors, so the blades heal faster and the lawn stays greener.
Source: Lawn mower
