GARRETT
Richard Garrett was a hand tool, hoe and sickle maker in Suffolk in the 1770s. Several more generations of Richard Garrett carried on the traditions with the third improving a Norfolk-designed threshing machine to the point where 60 men were producing them and other tools in Leiston by 1836.
Portable steam engines were in production by 1840 and the first 8hp self-propelled version was offered in the mid-1850s, when there was a brief liaison with Boydell. Soon Garretts resembled Aveling machines with up-front fifth wheel steering, two speeds and chain drive.
Ploughing engines with Garrett cultivators tended to be based on Howard steam equipment until in 1870 Savory’s Patent Ploughing Engine was adopted. This design featured a vertical winding drum around the boiler and came in for steady modification and improvement.
Employment at Leiston reached 300 hundred at the start of the 1850s. Ten years later it had doubled on a ten-acre site that included the Long Shop specifically designed for series production
