As Britain became increasingly industrialised, Budding inventors with engineering know-how saw the opportunity to mechanise processes that hitherto had been performed by hand. One such was John Lewis who owned the Brinscombe Mill in Stroud.

When a piece of cloth is initially woven, its surface is rough and uneven and needs to be finished off to create a flat surface. The rough edges or nap were cut off by hand using shears, a skilled and laborious process. Lewis’ masterstroke was to patent, in 1815, a Machine that allowed the cloth to move underneath a horizontal blade, which trimmed off the nap evenly and quickly.

In the 1820s Stroud-born Edward Beard Budding worked at Lewis’ mill as a “mechanician”. It was during this time that Lewis further enhanced his machine by replacing the horizontal blade with a helical-shaped one which allowed for continuous Cutting. If he had not actually worked on these improvements, Budding would have seen the machines in action. An inventive chap, he wondered whether Lewis’ machine could be adapted to create an even surface by trimming off the unruly tops of blades of grass.

It could. What Budding produced was a cast iron machine which used gears and a roller to generate enough energy to turn a horizontal 19-inch cutting cylinder fitted with three blades. As the blades turned, they forced the grass against a fixed plate on the underside of the mower and cut the stalks. A second roller in the middle of the machine allowed the height of the blades to be adjusted. It was pushed from behind and the cuttings were thrown forward into a tray. Astonishingly, the basic design has remained largely unaltered to this day.

Budding teamed up with John Ferrabee, owner of the Phoenix Ironworks in Thrupp, just outside Stroud, to develop a working prototype which they would only try out at night, fearing ridicule from the locals. Satisfied that it worked, Budding applied for a patent in May 1830 for what he described as “a new combination and application of machinery for the purpose of cropping or shearing the vegetable surfaces of lawns, grass-plat and pleasure grounds, constituting a machine which may be used with advantage instead of a scythe for that purpose”. He also stressed the health benefits of his invention, claiming that “country gentlemen may find in using my machine themselves an amusing, useful, and healthy exercise”.

The patent (No 6081) was duly granted on August 31, 1830, and the mowers were made available on a commercial basis for the cost of ten guineas, including a wooden packing case. One was purchased by Mr Curtis, head gardener at the Zoological Society in Regent’s Park, who, having put the machine through its paces for four months, professed himself “entirely satisfied” with the results. “With two men, one to draw and another to push”, he commented, “it does as much work as six or eight men with scythes and brooms; not only in mowing, but in sweeping up the grass, and lifting it into a box; performing the whole so perfectly as not to leave a mark of any kind behind”.

Early advertisements showed gentlemen dressed in white trousers, coat tails, and a top hat pushing their mowers – the only way to mow a lawn, I feel – but despite the impression given, using Budding’s machine was no stroll in the park. They were heavy, the clutch had to be held down continually to maintain the drive and downward pressure was needed to coax it into moving and cutting. Still, as early proponents claimed, it afforded “an excellent exercise to the arms and every part of the body”.

By 1832 Budding had allowed J R & A Ransomes of Ipswich, then producers of heavy agricultural machinery, to produce and sell his mowers under licence. Ransomes extended the range to include machines with 16- and twenty-two-inch cutting cylinders and by 1840 had sold over a thousand.     

Budding, though, concentrated his energies on other things, including the invention of a screw-adjustable spanner, before dying of a stroke on September 25, 1846. Examples of his early machines can be seen at the museums in Stroud and the London Science Museum. In 2015, a blue plaque was erected in his memory on the wall of what was his workshop in Thrupp, now the site of the Stroud Brewery.

Lawnmower technology moved on, while remaining faithful to Budding’s fundamental design. Horse drawn mowers were introduced in the 1840s. To minimise damage to the turf, the horses were fitted with leather slippers. Once Buddin’s patent had expired, Leeds-based Thomas Green developed a machine that used a chain to generate power to the rear roller and cutting cylinder rather than gears. It was lighter and quieter than its predecessors but not as quiet as its name, Silens Messor (silent mower), suggested. Launched in 1859 it became the first commercially successful machine.

Steam-driven mowers appeared in the 1890s and in 1902 Ransomes launched the first lawnmower powered by an internal combustion engine. An American farmer, C C Stacy, came up with an electric mower in the 1930s, but the economic impact of the Depression meant that it was only after the Second World War that electric mowers were mass-produced. Sadly, Stacy had not patented his design.

Whether you see it as a pleasure or a chore, Budding made cutting the lawn considerably easier.