1920s

Shanks was one of the major mower manufacturers of the 19th and early 20th centuries along with Greens and Ransomes. The company was based in Scotland and produced its first mowers in the 1840s. It was probably the first company to develop designs independently of the original Budding style.

This model was known as the Standard Chain and was one of the first mowers to use the familiar roller chain. Before this time chain-driven mowers has a more basic block chain. The model was produced from the 1890s to the early 1930s.

Like many hand mowers of this size it was designed to be pulled by one person (often an apprentice or labourer) while the gardener pushed and steered. Larger machines were designed to be pulled by donkeys, ponies or horses. Shanks was the first company to design a mower specifically to be pulled by horses.

The machine on display was sold by an ironmonger in Buckinghamshire in the early 1920s but the owner returned it after a few weeks and bought a motor mower instead. The shop never resold the machine which means that it has done less than a month's work in almost 100 years.