Edwin Beard Budding

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

Budding got the idea of the lawnmower after seeing a machine in a local cloth mill which used a cutting cylinder (or bladed reel) mounted on a bench to trim the irregular nap from the surface of woollen cloth and give a smooth finish. He realised that a similar device could be used to cut grass if the mechanism was mounted in a wheeled frame to make the blades rotate close to the lawn's surface. Budding went into partnership with a local engineer, John Ferrabee, and together they made mowers in a factory at Thrupp near Stroud. Examples of the early Budding type mowers can be seen in Stroud Museum, the London Science Museum and at Milton Keynes Museum.