OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums The History Forum Model Histories AUSTRALIAN Rotary Models ALEX GRAHAME - The Rotaries - c1956

Hello ODK History Lovers

The Alex Grahame Company of 1 Whiting Street, Leichhardt, NSW, manufactured rotary lawn mowers
from about 1956. These new machines for a new age - the rotary revolution - would augment the
reel mowers the company had been making since the 1930s. The Company, itself,was established
in 1890. This was an old and respected Australian lawnmower company!

Two model sizes were manufactured: the 18 Inch, followed a season later by the 21 Inch machine.
Both machines were of the conventional design, but solidly made, and were sold directly from the
Company showroom(s), and through a small dealer network, state and interstate.

This post is a Supplement to the Main Story on the Alex Grahame Company, discussed in the
Company Histories Forum. The reel mowers are discussed as another supplementary story in the
AUS Reel Mowers Forum (see Related Reading below).



TO BE CONTINUED ...

PART TWO - The 18 Inch Rotary - c1956

The 18" rotary was Alex Grahame's first rotary lawnmower. Introduced in about late 1956,
it would be a somewhat conventional rotary of the day. It had a steel base with a skirt, offering
some safety, and setting it apart from the Victa-style 'toe-cutter (skirtless) base of the day.

The machine has quite a distinctive fuel tank design and the original machines did not
have folding handles. Height adjustment was primitive, with four point adjustment, requiring
tools. The first 18 inch machines appear to have been powered by the reliable Villiers Mk3
Midget 98cc 2-stroke.



Price-wise, the Alex Grahame 18 inch was priced above the equivalent Victa Rotomo, with its
standardised price of £49/18/-. At £54 the 18" was dearer.



DE LUXE, SPECIAL & STANDARD Models

By at least the 1958-59 Lawnmower Season the machine was offered in three variants: the Standard
Special and the De Luxe. Note in the advertisement below that the De Luxe has a recoil start fitted to
the Midget engine, folding handles and 'Dial-a-Hite' (spring-loaded knobs) for adjusting the
four-point height of cut.



Mark 3 Midget crankcase X stampings
Here is a list of the Villiers Midget crankcase stampings for engines delivered
to the Alex Grahame Company.

233X MK3 ALEX GRAHAME (NSW) COWL NO TANK BRACKETS LONG MUFFLER OWN TANK
339X MK3 ALEX GRAHAME RECOIL FITTED NO TANK BRACKETS OWN TANK
371X MK3 ALEX GRAHAME COWL NO TANK BRACKETS RECOIL FITTED OWN TANK RED FINISH
384X MK3 ALEX GRAHAME COWL NO BRACKETS OWN TANK MUFFLER

TO BE CONTINUED ...

PART THREE - Alex Grahame 18 INCH ROTARY

This appears to be an early 18" machine. Note the sturdy steel base, thin skirt, fuel tank
and 4-point height adjustment.



{Image: Courtesy vintagemowers.net]

TO BE CONTINUED ...

PART FOUR - 21 INCH ROTARY - c1957

The 21" mower was an up-scaled version of the 18", having a skirted steel base fitted with
6 inch semi-pneumatic front wheel and 8 inch rears. Engine protection was provided for by
two swing-back cutting blades. Released in late 1957, this would be one of the first lawnmowers
to use the - also newly released - Villiers, governed, vertical shaft engine.

The machine was branded as the 'Automower', taking advantage of the throttle-control-less
feature of the new Villiers Torque Master Mk. 7F automatically governed engine, arguably the
first mechanically governed 2-stroke lawnmower engine on the Australian market. Priced at £63,
this was not a cheap lawnmower.

Height adjustment remained as a 4-point, but adjustment could now be done on each wheel
without tools via 'finger-tip'. There were now height adjustable and folding handles, a
necessary feature by this time.

Of particular note in this late 1957 advertisement is the Company's boast of '68' -
Lawnmower Specialists for 68 years. Established 1890". That may well make Alex Grahame the
longest, continuous running, privately-owned, Australian lawnmower company.
A well-deserved boast!




There is a curious thing in this late 1958 advertisement. The Automower shrunk to 20 inches!
I cannot explain this beyond the possibility that the mower was, in fact, closer to a 20" cut
than a 21" cut. In any case, most references I have found label the machine as 21 inches.

Also note the second address: the company had another showroom at 427-433 Victoria Road,
Gladesville - servicing customers on the northern side of the Harbour and covering the
Sydney Metropolitan area. In the 1957 advertisement (above), the Company boasted that this
mower was "Available from Accredited Representatives throughout Australia". No such boast
appears in later ads; suggesting an expanded or Australia-wide network never eventuated.
Given the available evidence, I think that's right.




For the record, there is some evidence that the 21 Inch machine may have also been
offered with J.A.P. engines in the very early 1960s. Here is an extract from
a Repco Catalogue from the late 1960s.



TO BE CONTINUED ...

PART FIVE - Alex Grahame 18 INCH Rotary






PART FIVE - Alex Grahame 21 INCH Rotary

PART SIX - SIGNIFICANCE & ASSESSMENT

The Alex Grahame rotaries are clearly collectable, given their early Australian-made
lawnmower heritage. For me, their significance does not lie in their conservative designs,
but in their being a product of an early Australian lawnmower company, dating to 1890.

This is a company that saw and experienced it all - from push, pony, horse, gang, and power
(electric & petrol), reel mowers to the rotary revolution of the 1950s. If nothing else,
Alex Grahame was a survivor!

The rotary designs, however, could not really survive the 1960s, where the expectations about
what a lawnmower was and what it should cost clearly outpaced the capacity of a small company
with no real dealer network or Australia-wide coverage. This is not so unusual - out of the
dozens of small manufacturers that sprung up in the 1950s, many would not see the next decade;
none would survive to see the 1970s. It would be the big players - Victa, Rover, Pope, Turner,
Supa-Swift - that would advance Australian lawnmower design from here on in.

The Company, however, did survive the 1960s, but not as a lawnmower manufacturer. They re-
mained repairers and dealers. They also manufactured a highly successful motorised vacuum cleaner
they named the Litter-Vac. At some stage, that design was sold to Victa ... to become the Victa-Vac,
a product still sold today!

I don't know when the company closed shop. The last records I have date from the late 1960s.
I guess the company ran its natural course.

The rest is history.
------------------------------------------------------------
JACK

ALEX GRAHAME COMPANY

IAN's Alex Grahame Rotary



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