COMING SOON Full details on how the readers of Service Dealer can vote for the machines, the innovations, the companies and the people who have shaped the garden machinery and outdoor power equipment industry over the past decades
DIARY DATE The winners of the Heritage Awards will be revealed at a special event at SALTEX on Tuesday 6 September. More details later.
SERVICE DEALER BUSINESS QUARTERLY Published April, June, September and December 2013
WHAT WOULD EDWIN HAVE THOUGHT? 130 mph version of his contraption?
He was young, ambitious, self taught and eager to make a difference.
Only in his mid-thirties, Edwin Budding would have made a terrific member of the Top Gear team.
He looked at what was there, wondered how he could bend it, shape it, change it - and come up with an idea that was faintly outrageous but which pushed the boundaries of mechanical engineering. In his case, creating the world’s first lawnmower.
My guess is that if a Time Lord could catapult him forward by over 180 years, he would be utterly smitten with the idea of today’s version of his ‘combination for cropping or shearing the vegetable surfaces of lawns’ being turned into a 130mph sit-on, flame-spitting, turbo-charged mowing contraption by a company from far, far away across the water!
Whilst Edwin Budding might lack the recognition of a Thomas Eddison or an Alexander Graham Bell, his contribution to the social and cultural life of today's society has been little short of immense. Without his ‘Big Idea’, our national sports might never have achieved their popular appeal by giving sport to the masses. Gardens, parks and open spaces could have remained unkempt and uncared for.
Which is why, this year - to mark the 25th Anniversary of Service Dealer - we are staging the special one-off, Heritage Awards.
We wish to celebrate and remember the vision, first of Edwin Budding who in 1830 looked at the carding machine used to trim the nap from newly woven cloth in textile mills - and was inspired to think laterally about other uses. His spirit has been carried forward by those who have taken inspiration from his invention - and pushed the boundaries to improve and enhance grasscare and outdoor power equipment during 20th century as gardens, parks, sports facilities, woods, trees and hedges, rural and urban open spaces needed constant upkeep.
The industry often flies below the radar - but it has attracted the attention of some brilliant free-thinking entrepeneurs and innovators who have largely stayed true to Budding’s thought-processes, but added on their own twist.
The Heritage Awards are an opportunity for the industry to remember the roots that underpin its future.
