Richard Garrett (12 October 1755 – 20 October 1839)R. A. Whitehead. ''Garretts of Leiston'' (London: Percival Marshall, 1965) founded Richard Garrett & Sons, the agricultural machinery manufacturing plant in

Leiston Leiston ( ) is a town and civil parish in the East Suffolk (district), East Suffolk district of Suffolk, England. It is close to Saxmundham and Aldeburgh, north-east of Ipswich and north-east of London. The town had a population of 5,508 at th ...

in the English county of

Suffolk Suffolk ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and East Anglia. It is bordered by Norfolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Essex to the south, and Cambridgeshire to the west. Ipswich is the largest settlement and the county ...

. The company was the largest employer in Leiston in the 19th century. Part of the building is preserved as the Long Shop Museum.

Family and career

Born the first of twelve children in

Melton, Suffolk Melton is a village in Suffolk, England, located approximately one mile northeast of Woodbridge. The 2001 census recorded a population of 3,718, the population increasing to 3,741 at the 2011 Census. The village is served by Melton railway stat ...

, Garrett married Elizabeth Newson on 1 October 1778. They had six sons and three daughters. When Elizabeth died in 1794, Garrett married Jemima Cottingham. Elizabeth came from Leiston and the couple settled there on their marriage. He became a bladesmith and

gunsmith A gunsmith is a person who repairs, modifies, designs, or builds guns. The occupation differs from an armorer, who usually replaces only worn parts in standard firearms. Gunsmiths do modifications and changes to a firearm that may require a very ...

at a High Street forge rented from William Cracey. Garrett was soon employing eight men and by 1830 the works had 60 employees. His son Richard, the third to bear the name, succeeded him as works manager in 1826. The fourth Richard transformed it into a nationally significant manufacturer of

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs Work (physics), mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a Cylinder (locomotive), cyl ...

s and

traction engine A traction engine is a steam engine, steam-powered tractor used to move heavy loads on roads, plough ground or to provide power at a chosen location. The name derives from the Latin ''tractus'', meaning 'drawn', since the prime function of any ...

Descendants

Garrett's grandson Newson Garrett, founder of Snape Maltings, was the father of several remarkable women: Agnes Garrett, the first woman to set up an interior design company, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, Britain's first female doctor, and Millicent Garrett Fawcett, a prominent suffragist. Another descendant was the mycologist Denis Garrett.J. W. Deacon (1992).
Stephen Denis Garrett: Pioneer leader in plant pathology
, '' Annual Review of Phytopathology'' 30: 27–36

References

1755 births 1839 deaths Machine manufacturers People from Leiston {{UK-business-bio-1750s-stub