Edwin Beard Budding

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Edwin Beard Budding (1795–1846), an engineer from Stroud, England, was the English inventor of the lawnmower (1830) and adjustable spanner.

Budding got the idea of the lawnmower after seeing a machine in a local cloth mill which used a cutting cylinder (or bladed reel) mounted on a bench to trim the irregular nap from the surface of woollen cloth and give a smooth finish.[1]

He realised that a similar device could be used to cut grass if the mechanism was mounted in a wheeled frame to make the blades rotate close to the lawn's surface. Budding went into partnership with a local engineer, John Ferrabee, and together they made mowers in a factory at Thrupp near Stroud.[2]

Examples of the early Budding type mowers can be seen in Stroud Museum, the London Science Museum and at Milton Keynes Museum.

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