Who Invented the Lawn Mower?

Before 1830, a tidy lawn meant paying a crew with scythes, or letting sheep do the work. Cutting grass by hand was slow and expensive, which is why a short lawn was a mark of wealth in that era.

The lawn mower was invented by Edwin Beard Budding, a textile engineer in Gloucestershire, who patented the first one in 1830. However, the mower in most garages today owes just as much to a second inventor working seventy years later, whose contribution rarely gets full credit. Both stories are here, along with an explanation of why the two keep getting mixed up.

The two individuals who invented the lawn mower

Edwin Beard Budding and John Albert Burr share credit for the invention of the lawn mower, even though their inventions were patented seventy years apart. Each one shaped the mower you use today.

• Edwin Beard Budding (1830): He was an engineer in Stroud, Gloucestershire, who adapted a textile mill machine used to trim cloth into one designed to cut grass, and patented it on 31 August 1830.
• John Albert Burr (1899): He patented the rotary, traction-wheeled design most hand mowers still use today, which is also the reason a mower can cut right up to a wall without clogging.

Budding proved a machine could replace a crew of scythe workers, while Burr's patent proved that the same idea could work in an ordinary yard instead of just a large estate, cutting close to the edges without clogging up. If either patent had been skipped, the mower most people use today wouldn't work the way it does.

Edwin Beard Budding and the First Lawn Mower

Budding patented the first lawn mower in 1830 by adapting a cloth-trimming machine from his day job at a Stroud textile mill. Born in Eastington, Gloucestershire, in 1796, he spent the rest of his career inventing tools unrelated to grass.

How did Budding's idea of a lawn mower come about?

Budding worked at a textile mill in Stroud, Gloucestershire, where a spinning cylinder of blades trimmed loose threads off finished cloth. He saw that the same blades could cut grass instead, and mounted the cylinder on wheels so it could roll across a lawn rather than sit on a workbench.

He patented the design on 31 August 1830, describing it as machinery for "cropping or shearing the vegetable surface of lawns, grass-plats and pleasure grounds," an old-fashioned way of saying that it cut the grass on a large property.

Who the first mower was built for

Budding's mower was built for sports grounds and large private gardens, instead of the average household. Early models needed two people to run; one person pushed the mower from behind while another pulled a rope from the front.

Budding built the mower with his business partner, John Ferrabee, whose iron works manufactured it. Only large estates and institutions could afford one for decades after the patent, longer than Budding lived to see. One of those early machines still survives in Stroud, and you can see the BBC's record of Budding's 1830s mower alongside the original patent drawing.

Other inventions by Budding

Budding's best-known invention outside the mower is the adjustable spanner, patented in 1842 and still recognizable in almost any toolbox today. Budding died in 1846, four years after that patent and sixteen years after his mower patent.

John Albert Burr and the Mower You Use Today

John Albert Burr patented the rotary, traction-wheel redesign in 1899 that makes a mower work the way it does today. His design changes deserve the same weight Budding's gets, and so does his place in this history.

Who is John Albert Burr?

John Albert Burr was born in Maryland in 1848 to parents who had been enslaved, and reached engineering by a path almost no one else in his position was allowed to take.

• Teenage years: Burr worked as a field hand during the Civil War rather than attending school.
• Turning point: His mechanical aptitude was noticed and funded, letting him attend engineering classes at a private university, an opportunity almost no African American teenager had in that era.
• Early career: Burr repaired farm equipment, then worked as a steelworker in Chicago.
• 1898: Burr was living in Agawam, Massachusetts, when he filed his lawn mower patent.

What John Albert Burr Patented

Burr patented an improved lawn mower on 9 May 1899, U.S. Patent 624,749, filed the previous September. There were three changes that set it apart from the previous lawn mower patent:

• Traction wheels on a single central shaft: These gave the mower an early version of the drive layout still used in today's self-propelled mowers.
• Fully enclosed gearing: Grass clippings couldn't choke the mechanism the way they could on earlier designs.
• Blades extending past the wheels: These let the mower cut right up to a wall or fence post, something Budding's design couldn't do.

Burr went on to hold more than thirty U.S. patents across lawn care and farm equipment, and kept control of his own patent, which was unusual for an African American inventor of that era. His later work on mulching and dispersing clippings is the direct ancestor of the mulching mowers sold today. He died in 1926, at the age of 78.

Why is John Albert Burr sometimes called the inventor of the lawn mower?

Burr is sometimes credited as the lawn mower inventor because his 1899 patent was the one that shaped the mower design most people still use today, even though Budding built the first lawn mower nearly seventy years earlier.

A number of sources credit Burr with inventing the lawn mower outright, usually in an effort to give an African American inventor the well-deserved recognition he was often denied during that era. That recognition is deserved, just aimed at the wrong claim. Burr built the mower that finally worked in an ordinary yard, but not the one that came first.

How Did People Cut Grass Before 1830?

Grass was cut with hand tools and by grazing animals before 1830, and keeping it short required either a paid crew or a flock of animals that most households couldn't spare.

• Scythes and sickles: Crews of laborers swung them at dawn, when dew let the blade cut more cleanly and left a smoother edge.
• Grazing animals: Sheep and cattle handled the rest of the grounds, since animals were cheaper than paying more workers.

That labor requirement made a short, even lawn a status symbol long before it became a lifestyle upgrade. A tidy lawn was proof someone could afford to maintain it.

Budding's mower changed who could take on the chore, not just how fast it got done. A machine that one or two people could push replaced a job that once required a whole crew, which eventually put a tidy lawn within reach of an ordinary household rather than just a large estate.

Lawn Mower History From 1899 to Today's Robot Mowers

The lawn mower kept changing after Burr's patent, and each step removed a little more human effort from the job.

Both Inventors Deserve the Credit for the Lawn Mower Invention

Budding and Burr solved two different problems, seventy years apart. Crediting one doesn't erase the other's part. The mower in a garage today carries pieces from both: the cutting cylinder from Budding's cloth mill and the traction wheels and edge-cutting blades from Burr's workshop seventy years later. Every invention since, from gas engines to today's camera-guided mowers, has kept solving the same problem those two started solving, moving the person a little further away from behind the machine.

Frequently Asked Questions

When was the lawn mower invented?

The lawn mower was invented in 1830, when Edwin Beard Budding filed a patent for a machine that cut grass using a rotating cylinder of blades. He adapted the design from textile-finishing equipment at his mill job in Gloucestershire.

What did John Burr invent?

John Burr invented an improved rotary lawn mower, granted U.S. Patent 624,749 in 1899. His design added traction wheels on a central shaft and fully enclosed gearing that resisted clogging, changes still found on hand mowers today.

What is the oldest mower brand?

The earliest mower manufacturers were based in Britain in the mid-1800s, producing machines under license from Budding's original patent not long after 1830.

Who invented the riding lawn mower?

Riding lawn mowers grew out of tractor-mounted gang mowers used on golf courses and large properties in the early 1900s, adapted from farm equipment rather than patented by any single inventor.

When was the first gas lawn mower made?

The first gas lawn mower was built in 1902 in Britain, when Ransomes produced the first commercially available petrol-engine model. The first US-manufactured gas mowers followed in 1919, built by Edwin George.

Who invented the robot lawn mower?

The first commercial robot mower reached the market in the mid-1990s, with no single inventor credited, unlike Budding and Burr for earlier designs. Early models needed buried boundary wires that today's camera- and LiDAR-guided mowers no longer need.

References

BBC. (n.d.). A grass cutting machine (lawn mower) [Museum object record]. A History of the World. https://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/NI2ZjBwpTcqYdtpXFnIzUQ