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THE MANIMALS (Continued)

By the 1850s lawnmowers were becoming larger.

Whilst Shanks may have been the pioneer here, others quickly followed suit in
England and North America.

These machines were powered by animals, and specific machines were designed for ponies,
donkeys and horses. Those machines would be produced right up to the 1940s, and were
popular in Australia amongst golf clubs, sporting bodies and municipal councils.

However, the most amazing thing for me was to discover that larger push mowers,
of the Manimal kind, were still being offered and manufactured until the 1950s.

The great English company Ransomes included these machines in its 1950s catalogue of mowers.
I own a brochure of these machines (in poor condition), but also a catalogue (in good condition).

Here are the two relevant pages from the Ransomes catalogue. Note that these machines were
suitable for animal power but the clear market was India and its abundance of labour.




All very interesting.
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JACK.