The Golf Course Superintendents Association of America’s (GCSAA) Edwin Budding Award is given annually to an individual in the turf equipment industry whose actions have gone above and beyond the norm to help shape the turf equipment management industry into what it is today. Edwin Beard Budding was one of those individuals who helped define the turf maintenance industry.
Though the award is normally given to GCSAA members, nominations are also accepted from members of qualified greenkeeping organisations such as our own Association of Turfgrass Professionals Ireland (ATPI). Nominations have to be in by 30 August, 2023. This closing date is interesting as it was on the following day, 31 August 1830 that Edwin Budding was granted a British patent for his newly designed lawn mower.
Edwin Budding came from Stroud in England. He worked in different iron foundries as a pattern-maker and had a unique talent for solving engineering problems. His idea of a lawn mower came from watching a machine in a textile mill that trimmed the irregular surface of woollen cloths to a smooth finish. Up to this time scythes were used to cut grass, which was a long and tedious method.
Budding’s new invention was used to cut grass at sports grounds and large gardens. By 1831 his mowers were widely available and a year later, due to huge demand, his mowers were commercially produced by the agricultural machinery manufacturing firm Ransomes of Ipswich. It may come as a surprise to many but Edwin Budding also invented the adjustable spanner.
Edwin Budding’s design has shaped grass maintenance as we know it today. Sadly, in 1846, he died from a stroke at the age of only 50. Like so many before him, he didn’t live to see the full impact of his invention.
So what is all this to do with Service Dealer and its connection with Edwin Budding? On 22 April 2015, the then editor of Service Dealer, Chris Biddle, donated a plaque to Stroud District Council to honour the lawn mower inventor. The Blue Plaque had been specially commissioned to mark the 25th Anniversary of Service Dealer magazine. The commemorative plaque was put on the wall of Stroud Brewery, which stands on the site of the original Phoenix Iron Mills, where Budding worked and invented his mower. It was unveiled, on behalf of the British Garden Machinery Industry by David Withers, who was then president of Ransomes Jacobsen. David Withers was based in the USA and flew over specially to unveil the plaque.
At the time Chris Biddle commented “We should never forget the debt of gratitude the industry should have for the extraordinary engineering skill of Edwin Budding. His original machine when viewed today is remarkably similar to present day mowers.”
True enough, if you place Budding’s original mower beside a modern day pedestrian cylinder mower you will not see a lot of differences, except, perhaps, one of them has an engine.
