1837 - Samuel Taylor fits a scraper to his Budding's Patent

Hi Paul

Pleased you have posted that story, had completely forgotten about it, found a copy of my hard drive dated 2012, that was my early days of Budding research. So save money on griding paste by collecting worm casts! 

I did make some notes on 'Willett of Kings Lynn' from whom Samuel Taylor bought his Budding mower, this was Charles Willett who set up his ironmongery business in Kings Lynn in 1822, was a large concern described as a wholesale & retail ironmonger, bar iron merchant, fire engine manufacturer, & steam boiler manufacturer. 

He occasionally sponsored demonstrations of new equipment on local farms. In August 1864, he arranged a trial of ‘Samuelson’s Self Raking, Side-Delivery Reaper’ on the farm of Jacob Curl at East Winch, to which he invited all of his farming friends and clients.

Interesting that Budding focused on a scraper for the intermediate roller situated behind the cutting cylinder & ignored the large drum roller. One interesting point, in the original patent the intermediate roller was to be of cast iron but Taylor refers to the 'Main' or 'Iron Roller' for his scraper I feel thereby confirming at that stage the smaller roller was made of wood.

Not sure what evidence we have in the early references to know if there were any iron ones or if reference to the wooden type was actually stated. As we know one of the only two surviving Budding type mowers has a wooden intermediate roller, the other has the assembly missing.

Whilst digging through my other bits from the 1830's have come across the advertisement below from 1837 where William Crosskill of Beverley states that he has sold upwards of 50 Budding lawn mowers, and had negotiated with the patentee to reduce prices.

It's great to find snippets of information from the early days.

For anyone interested in seeing the earliest Budding mower known to exist, it is on display in The Museum of Gardening, Hassocks, West Sussex until 16th April when we have arranged to loan it to the British Library for three months and feature in their exhibition 'Unearthed: The power of gardening' returning to us afterwards. The only other Budding type mower known to exist is on display ion the Science Museum, London.

Thank you Clive for the great information,  I had not, until today "Googled" these Norfolk companies

But after a brief search, lots of  great information.          

For Example this lovely advert  of 1847 in the Gardeners Chronicle  for Crosskill's   and directly below it,  an advert by John Ferrabee.