Biography

Richard Garrett & Sons were an engineering company which specialised in the manufacture of agricultural machinery, steam engines, lorries, trolleybuses and machine tools at their Leiston Works in Suffolk.

The company was founded by Richard Garrett in 1778, who made his sons Richard and John partners in 1853. The business passed to his older son Richard (1779-1837) in 1805. A year later, in 1806, the company made the first Horse-power Threshing Machine. By the 1830s the company was in the hands of the third generation of the family, the son of Richard, also called Richard Garrett, and began to manufacture what would become a long line of steam engines.

By 1914, already managed by the fourth generation of the family, the company had greatly expanded to employ over two thousand people and was manufacturing a range of products including superheated and saturated steam semi-stationary engines, traction engines, road rollers and motor wagons.

During the First World War, Garrett worked for the Ministry of Munitions and shortly after the war combined with a number of other engineering manufacturers to create the Agricultural and General Engineers Limited (AGE).

Garrett became pioneers in the construction of diesel-engine road vehicles and Crude Oil Wagons. In 1923 they explored the manufacture of trolleybuses and in 1925 tried to enter the railway locomotive market but they abandoned both initiatives as they proved unprofitable for the company.

In 1932 the company was purchased by Beyer, Peacock & Co after the collapse of AGE and the business continued as Richard Garrett Engineering Works until it finally folded in 1981, over 200 years after it was first founded.

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