Skip to main content
Collection, Preservation and Display of Old Lawn Mowers

MP032: JP Super Power Mower 1920s

A 24" JP Super Power Mower (left) alongside a smaller JP motor mower at Milton Keynes Museum.

The JP Super one of the most popular and successful hand mowers of the 1920s and 1930s. During the same period the Leicester based company also manufactured motor mowers. These machines were produced to the same high quality standards for which JP was best known. In fact, the company's own sales brochures referred to it as the "Rolls Royce of Lawn Mowers"

24" JP Super Power Mower as seen in a contemporary company brochure.

Of the motor mowers produced by JP in the 1920s and 1930s by far the rarest and, perhaps, most interesting is the 24" JP Super Power Mower. This was unusual because it featured a water cooled four stroke engine with an open topped water hopper that resembles a small cauldron or cooking pot! In fact, cooling was achieved by a combination of the water jacket and air forced around the outside of the combustion chamber by an impellor built into the main engine unit.

JP prided itself on the quality of its design and manufacture and this included making the mower easy to maintain. The mower was designed so that the entire engine unit could be removed easily for maintenance and repair. JP brochures of the period also claimed that this would allow the mower to be used by hand but it is doubtful if this was really practical because, even without its engine, the mower would have been large and heavy.

The complete engine unit can be removed for easy maintenance.

The cutting cylinder was also easily removed by simply undoing a couple of retainers and lifting it out. This was unusual, but not unique, for mowers of this period. However, removing the cylinder on most of the mowers produced by JP's main rivals was still difficult. In recent years this concept has been revived by a number of the leading cylinder mower manufacturers, some of whom claim their designs are an innovation.

The cutting cylinder can be lifted out for sharpening and repair.

Another of the design features that made the 24" JP Super Power Mower unusual in its time was the starting mechanism. This was an early type of rope or pull start, whereas during the same period most motor mowers featured conventional crank handle starting. JP claimed this made the mower easier to start and, to illustrate the point, showed the mower being started by a young woman in some of its advertisements.

Starting the JP mower with the novel "pull start" mechanism.

Examples of the 24" JP Super Motor Mower can occasionally be found and a few enthusiasts have them in their collections. The example at the top of this page was spotted at the Club's Annual Rally in 2002.