Vintage Spanners & Wrenches in Australia

Hugh Lennon

Hugh Lennon of Spottswood in Melbourne

Hugh Lennon Maker of Spottiswoode cast iron machinery plate

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Lennon Bio & Company History
Lennon Plow Spanners
Lennon Malleable Spanners
Spanner marked Cast Steel
Lennon Advertising

Introduction

Lennon Bio and short Company History.

Hugh Lennon (1833 – 1886)
Hugh Lennon of Ireland was apprenticed to R Gray & sons of Uddington as a ploughmaker.
In 1859 he migrated to Victoria. In Victoria, he saw the need for and produced a plough suited to the dry farming on the northern plains. One innovation was to use wrought iron body and patented cast steel mouldboard. His superior ploughs were in huge demand and by 1870, sales of his single and double furrow plows was phenomenal.

Mowers were also produced and in1879 his “New Imperial Stripper” was patented, containing many of Lennon’s innovations. He also developed a winnower.
The Stripper and winnower provided the best harvesting unit on the Australian market.
By 1884, the firm was the largest of its kind in the Australian Colonies, selling 700 plows, 224 reapers, 60 strippers and many other implements each year.

Ref – Australian Dictionary of Biography by George Parsons
Some patent applications are listed in the National Archive

Lennon spanners found to date are a single named malleable end spanner and several heavy plate types, probably drop forged, with integral hammers and the name deeply imprinted into the base metal, either on one side or both.
See examples below:

Spanners supplied by Lennon for his agricultural equipment, made of cast and malleable iron in Whitworth sizes. Examples of Lennon end spanners in heavy forged steel in al least 3 are not rare in Melbourne even now.