PART FIVE - The Record Today - & My Thoughts
I feel Lawrence Hall deserves some credit in the Victa story.
Without the Hall family's push for his recognition in the late 20th Century,
that probably would not have been recognised in modern history records.

But there has been so much nonsense written!
I offer my thoughts here so that folk better understand the issues.

A fair record is presented for Wikipedia: -
The 'Victa' lawn mower was invented in 1952, in the backyard of Mervyn
Victor Richardson in Concord, Australia.

In 1951, Mervyn's son Garry mowed lawns to earn money in university holidays.
Garry borrowed Mervyn's Victa 14" cylinder-based power mower which was heavy
to transport and to operate. Mervyn wanted to design a new mower for his son's
business. Mervyn had seen Lawrence Hall's 'Mowhall' rotary lawn mower
demonstrated in 1948. The heavy Mowhall was not a very successful invention
because it required two people to use it, one to push and one to pull.

Although Richardson had developed rotating reel mowers for his son's business,
in August 1952 he decided to make a rotary lawn mower similar to the Mowhall,
using a Villiers two-stroke engine mounted on its side but utilising a lighter
base plate, allowing use by a single operator. He wanted it to be cheaper,
lighter and more powerful. It was called the "Peach-Tin Prototype", so named
because it was made out of scrap metal with a peach tin used as a fuel tank.
Wikipaedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victa
Accessed July, 2017

Analysis & Commentary
History is not static. Many historical accounts of the Victa story seem to
suggest that the earth stood still between Hall's Mowhall of 1948 and
Richardson's Rotomo prototype of late 1952, and then Richardson's first
production Rotomo, also of late 1952.

I have spent considerable time in research and have written on these
forums about this; recording the things that did change in those five
years between Merv's first viewing of the Mohall in 1948 (apparently
in a park in Concord), and his prototype.

So, let's discuss the Mohall and the prototype Rotomo ...

[Linked Image]

If the Mohall deserves credit in the Victa story, then I don't think it
will be found in a comparison between the Mowhall and the Victa prototype.

By 1948, the idea of a small vertical shaft petrol engine was not new at
all. It maybe that Hall deserves some credit as the first recorded example
of doing this here to a lawnmower. By 1952, however, Merv would have had
many other influences (apart from his viewing the Hall machine).

The concept of the rotary lawnmower was never a new idea post-WWII.
There is clear evidence of the North American Miller electric rotary of
the late 1920s; and the British Rotoscythe in electric and petrol forms
from the 1930s.

At no stage do I believe Hall or Richardson conceived the rotary
lawnmower design in ignorance.

By 1952, Richardson must have seen the huge influence of the Australian
rotary lawnmower industry. There were electric rotaries in just about
every Sydney department store by 1952!

Whatever Merv Richardson 'took' from Hall's Mohall must be found -
in my view - by comparing the one-off Mohall to Richardson's first
production machine - the Rotomo.

TO BE CONTINUED ...