Atco


Atco Garden Lawn Mowers

Atco is probably the most well known and respected manufacturer of lawnmowers in England, one of the few remaining truly English companies, they have been producing high quality mowers for over eighty-five years.

Lawn mowers were invented in 1830 and production of them steadily grew over time, although nothing major happened within the industry until 1915, eighty-five years later.

With the First World War well under way and England in the thick of it, any factories which were previously making lawnmowers were commissioned to manufacture ammunition and weapons, as were all factories which worked with metal, such as those who made other agricultural machinery.

The production of lawnmowers ground to a halt, and did not begin again until after the war ended in 1918. It was shortly after this that lawnmower production grew faster than at any other time.

Materials were more readily in supply, and the war efforts had introduced new technological and mechanical techniques. New manufacturers sprang up from everywhere, very few of which are still in business today.

Atco is one of those that has survived the test of time. This is largely due to the timely merge of the company with that of rival mower makers Qualcast. They became collectively ‘Atco-Qualcast’, and are as successful today as they ever were.

The name ‘Atco’ is derived from the company known as the Atlas chain Company, which is how Atco started out. The Atlas Chain Company was owned by a Mr. Charles Pugh, obviously, they made chains, in particular, bicycle and motorcycle chains, until Mr. Pugh decided that they should start making lawnmowers.

 The company were soon making nothing but mowers, and in 1921 became Atco.

The company experienced severe difficulties in 1939, when again Britain was at war. Again all lawnmower production ceased, and the entire Atco factory was commissioned for the manufacture of ammunition.

The post-war period following the 1945 ending of World War Two saw a huge demand for lawnmowers, even more so with the introduction of electricity into the designs for the motors.

Mower manufacture became huge business and there was plenty of competition. It was at this time that the price dropped drastically, and more working class people were able to afford them.

It was in the seventies that Atco merged with Qualcast and moved its entire operations from the Birmingham factory where they had been since the twenties, and set up in the small Suffolk town of Stowmarket.

This is where they have remained, growing and modernising with the changing needs of today’s gardeners. In the last ten years they have moved towards making their mowers more environmentally friendly, and more recently, have been making new garden machinery for environmental purposes, such as a garden waste shredder which runs in complete silence. It’s no surprise that Atco-Qualcast are still as popular as they ever were.