OutdoorKing Repair Forum Forums The History Forum Video & Image Gallery History Pictures SULKY MOWER - Botanic Gardens, Brisbane - c1938

Hello ODK History Lovers

In a city with a reputation for destroying its history, a rare treat is the Old Botanic Gardens,
situated on Gardens Point in the CBD. It was established as a public garden (park) well before
the State of Queensland came into being. Somehow it survived.

This was the testing ground for new, introduced species, some new to this country.
Wikipedia tells us that these included, mango, pawpaw, ginger, tamarind, mahogany, poinciana and
jacaranda trees as well as tobacco, sugar, grape vines, wheat, tropical fruits, tea, coffee,
spices and textile plants.

I knew that the Gardens once housed a zoo and I have read that a tortoise (named Harriet), and
reportedly collected by Charles Darwin during his visit to the Galapagos Islands in 1835, and
donated to the Gardens in 1860 by John Clements Wickham (former commander of the HMS Beagle),
made this place his home for over 100 years. Here is the layout, showing how the gardens are
straddled by the serpentine Brisbane River.



But, of course, I digress. You want to see the photograph.
It was composed beautifully by the 1938 The Queensland Pictorial photographer who seems
to have captured that laid-back style of Queenslanders, with the mother (reading paper)
with one shoe kicked-off, and the child - observing the focus of attention, the quick-paced
activity of a horse powered lawnmower in flight with a skilled operator at the reigns.
I wonder, who made that mower?



TO BE CONTINUED ...

PART TWO

This photograph from 1938 depicts a sulky mower, its power unit, and its operator.
The mower would have belonged to the Brisbane City Council
(the Council is also the source of this photograph).

I wonder who the operator was; and what was the horse's name?

I have no doubt, however, that this was a Shanks' Sulky mower.
People are often surprised when I tell them that gasoline-powered lawnmowers
(introduced in 1902) received a slow take-up in Australia. Prior to WWII, the most
common municipal lawnmower would be horse powered!

Here is my 1936 Shanks's Catalogue illustration of what I have identified as the mower
in the photograph. It's a Shanks's Triumph. I do not know enough about horses to explain
why the operator is dismounted from his sulky. He paces behind, maybe to quickly stop and
remove debris from the mowing path (pine cones, seeds, or the like); or maybe the horse was
just a flighty beast, not to be trusted. I don't know.



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

HISTORY PICTURES



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