Reel mowers in Australia were imported from England initially.
Many local engineering shops made mowers but Clyde Engineering, Qualcast
Australia, and Crowe Engineering were the three main engineering firms producing
non-motorised lawn mowers in Australia, Crowe from 1922 and Clyde from 1934. The
Powerhouse Museum cites two Sydney companies as the origin of Aussie made
mowers;
The Clyde Lawn Mower
From its origins in 1855, and founded by English
immigrant William Henry Hudson, Hudson and Sons, Redfern as the firm was known
from the early 1860s, was the forerunner of the giant engineering firm Clyde
Industries Limited, Granville, Sydney, and its predecessors The Clyde
Engineering Company Limited, Hudson Brothers Limited. The firm moved from
Redfern to Granville in 1881. Eventually, the Granville factory occupied about
22 acres (8.8 hectares) and there steam and diesel locomotives, tramcars,
aircraft, cranes, automobiles, batteries, air-conditioning units, and lawn
mowers (to name some of the industrial products) were designed and manufactured
over a period of a hundred years.
The company was also a major training facility for
trade apprentices in many areas of industry. In 1970, a large section of the
firm's operation was moved to Bathurst, and by 1972, much of the diesel
locomotive plant at Granville had ceased operation, with engineering
manufacturing being dispersed to Clyde facilities at Bathurst and Eagle Farm,
Queensland.
After the Great Depression of the early 1930s,
industry was in general slow to resume full capacity. Clyde Engineering was no
exception with production having fallen dramatically with staff capacity slowly
regaining pre-Depression levels. A large engineering contract was required to
boost Clyde's stalled productivity. The outstanding Australian civil engineering
project of the time, and an important economic gain for many Australian firms,
was the design and construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, for which Clyde
Engineering supplied the steelwork for the northern approaches to the
bridge.
By 1934, the economy had regained its lost
economic activity, and consumer confidence was also on the rise, so it was in
this context that Clyde Engineering made a decision to produce a non-motorised
lawn mower, which was given the tradename 'The Clyde'. This was a comparatively
minor project at Clyde and only occupied the firm for a short period. The number
of lawn mowers produced is uncertain, however most likely the numbers were
small, thus making 'The Clyde' a 'one-off' production line domestic mower, which
is now largely 'lost'. The iron and steel for the product was supplied by the
Broken Hill Proprietary Ltd (BHP) company.
Crowe Engineering Works Ltd.
The firm was established in 1910 by Ernest Charles
(E.C.) Crowe, first promoting his firm as general and motor engineers
manufacturing crank shafts, buffing and grinding machines, automotive spare
parts, and cylinders. However in 1922, Crowe Engineering began the manufacture
of what was to become their lasting contribution to product design and
development, the lawn mower. The decision to branch into the lawn mower business
was, interestingly, similar to that of Qualcast Australia (see above), namely,
to compete with the lawn mower imports that were considered to be dominating the
local market. So consuming was the lawn mower business, that the firm
promoted themselves as Lawn Mower Manufacturers. For the next 44 years, Ernest
and his son Victor Charles (V.C.) Crowe, ran a very successful business, which
produced some of Australian's most well-known brands of non-motorised lawn
mowers.
The firm had a factory 31-39 Holmsdale Street,
Marrackville, Sydney, and remained there until operations ceased on Monday 28
March 1966, when the remaining plant was auctioned by F.R. Strange Pty Ltd.,
Sydney, owing to an earlier sale of the factory, the death of Ernest, and the
retirement of Victor Crowe.
The most popular brand of Crowe hand mower was
'The Rex' and later the all metal 'Super Rex', the former being made from the
early 1930s, economically supported by an Australia-wide regime of high tariff
protection for general engineering production. A measure of the success of
tariff protection was that by the late 1930s, Crowe was producing ten different
models of non-motorised lawn mowers, with names such as 'Al-KRO, 'CLEAN CUT',
'BURNLEY', SENIOR', and 'SUPERB'. One interesting example was the model named
'SIRDAR', which Crowe made for the large Australian engineering trade, retail,
and supply manufacturer; John Danks & Son Pty Ltd. Crowe was commissioned to
make the the machine, which was then sold and recommended by John Danks and
Son.
After the Second World War, Crowe Engineering
started to produce petrol and electric mowers, but they were considered to be
not as popular as their traditional line of mower. The firm was represented at
the Marrackville Manufacturers' Exhibition, which was held in the Marrackville
Town Hall during March and April 1935, and photographs of the exhibition
indicate the large range of non-motorised lawn mowers being made by Crowe
Engineering.
Retrieved from Powerhouse Museum. Read more: www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=350569#ixzz24yakNUUg
- Under Creative Commons License: Attribution Non-Commercial
Clyde also made the famed C3801
steam locomotive.
Some sources state that the idea of ‘lawns’ evolved with tending
sheep and prior to the large mowers built for
harvesting crops, sheep were installed on many a large property to clear or
‘crop’ turf. The first patent for a machine for mowing lawns was granted to
Edwin Beard Budding (1795-1846) from Stroud, Gloucestershire, on August 31,
1830. Budding entered into an agreement with John Ferrabee, owner of Phoenix
Foundry at Thrupp Mill, Stroud, to produce the mower.
This version was a series of blades arranged around a cylinder
with a push handle patterned after a machine used for shearing the nap on velvet
in a cloth factory. The reel or cylinder mower, as it is called in England,
shears grass in the same way a pair of scissors works. The cutting blades are
riveted or welded to a series of piders located on a central shaft. As the shaft
turns the blades come in contact with the stationary bed knife to cut the blades
of grass. This clean cut promotes healthier, thicker and more resilient lawn
growth that is more resistant to disease, weeds and parasites.
In 1841 Alexander Shanks of Arbroath, Scotland, built a 27-inch
pony-drawn reel lawn mower, and the following year registered a 42-inch
horse-drawn mower. The human would have to walk alongside the horse, hence the
expression for walking “to go by Shanks’ Pony”.
Due to their quietness and ability to reach areas inaccessible
to larger petrol fuelled mowers they are becoming popular again. They are also
collector’s items and range in price from $25.00 for those that need a bit of
TLC. Brand new versions may also be purchased for not much more but don’t have
that element of Australian heritage Clydes and Crowes may.
Further:
Old Lawnmower
Club
