Edwin Beard Budding

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

Born in Stroud , Gloucestershire, Edwin Budding was an engineer. In 1830 he invented the lawn mower and the first adjustable spanner. He got the idea after seeing a machine in a local cloth mill which used a cutting cylinder (or bladed reel) mounted on a bench to trim cloth to make a smooth finish after weaving. Budding realised that a similar concept would enable the cutting of grass if the mechanism could be mounted in a wheeled frame to make the blades rotate close to the lawn's surface. He went into partnership with a local engineer, John Ferrabee, and together they made mowers in a factory at Stroud. Examples of the early Budding type mowers can be seen in Stroud Museum, the London Science Museum and at Milton Keynes Museum