Side Wheel Hand Mowers with Briggs and Stratton WMI engine and the Aston Patent Lawnmower Drive.
Brown Brothers were Electrical Engineers and Pumping Machinery Specialist who had their offices at 590 Colombo Street, Christchurch.
In 1936 they were advertising 3/4 hp Villiers petrol engines (Mar-Vil) which could be fitted to any small mower. The price was £13/10/-, with fitting extra.
By 1937 they had become sole Briggs and Stratton agents and were offering the WMI 1/2 hp model as the ideal lawnmower attachment.
The engine cost £14/10/- separately and any engineer could fit it. However, for £26 complete (increasing the following year to £28) they could supply an 18 inch Masport or a 17 inch Great American (side wheel) mower with a B&S engine and the Aston Patent Lawnmower Drive on both wheels and blades. (The Aston Drive was advertised separately at £5)
The Aston Lawnmower Drive was invented by William Aston of Blenheim, New Zealand. He described himself as being a "Machinery Expert", "Machinery Agent" and an "Engineer". A NZ Patent (77072) - Improved Power Driving Means for Lawn Mowers, was applied for and granted in 1937.
It was described as a power drive combination where the power of a petrol engine or an electric motor is used to power both the cutter blades and running wheels.
The operator is required only to guide the machine in its operations and the drive transmission could be stopped and restarted by a simple operation.
He appears to have been a prolific inventor with patents for a double acting plunger pump, a single caterpillar track garden cultivator and a patent in 1930 for "an attachment to an ordinary type of lawnmower by the use of which the machine may be electrically propelled".
Brown Bros. advertised their Aston Drive mowers until at least 1942, I have yet to find a surviving example.
It is interesting to note that Masport also experimented with motor driven (reel) mowers as early as 1938 and advertised them for sale, how many were sold is not known.
From about 1946 their Powermowers were being produced - a hand mower with an engine on top. They were powered by a four stroke Johnson Iron Horse engine mounted on a standard side wheel mower frame with standard metal wheels (initially without rubber tyres) and a wooden handle.
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