Have older kids who hate mowing the lawn? Well, at least they don’t have to use a scythe, and for that they can thank Edwin Beard Bunting, an engineer from Gloucestershire, England.
Bunting invented the lawn mower in 1830, after watching a cutting cylinder trim cloth in a cloth mill and realizing the same principle could be applied to grass. The first lawn mowers were made of cast iron, with a big roller at the back and a cutting wheel at the front. Bunting and another engineer, John Ferrabee, set up a lawn mower factory in Stroud to manufacture their invention and other companies made them too, under license. When Bunting and Ferrabee’s patents lapsed, these other companies were free to produce their own versions of lawn mowers, which have come to include petrol or steam-powered models, electric models, ride-on models, and even robotic models.
Time Travelling With Kids 