THE STORY OF THE ATCO STANDARD LAWN MOWER FROM 1921
The founder of the company, Charles H Pugh, was born on 6 June 1840. The second son of Richard Pugh of Newtown, Montgomery, Charles was schooled at Welshpool Grammar. On leaving school he travelled by steamship to Canada to earn his fortune, but by the time he was eighteen he was back in Montgomery and working in his father’s ironmongery business. By 1860 he had moved, becoming the manager of Messrs Mellard of Uttoxeter, manufacturers of dairy equipment, where he had his first patent, in the improvement of cheese making machinery. The patent proved very successful.
By 1867 he was married to Elizabeth Vernon of Uttoxeter and had purchased his first business, Messrs Brooks of Rotherham in the West Riding of Yorkshire. This was a jewellery business but also an ironmongery wholesaler for the repetition industry which
