William Rastrick

Son of John Rastrick (1651-1729) and father to John Rastrick (1738-1826).

Grandfather to John Urpeth Rastrick (1780-1856).

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The Rastricks - Civil Engineers

A Paper Read before The Newcomen Society by H. W. Dickinson and Arthur Lee

"The family originated in what is now the parish and township of Rastrick - mentioned as Rastric in the Domesday Survey of 1083 - in the West Riding of Yorkshire. There lived from 1651 to 1729 a certain John Rastrick, who in the troublous times of the Revolution of 1688 he came impoverished and migrated to Morpeth in Northumberland. His son William (1695- 1725) was a millwright at, Morpeth and his grandson John (1738-1826) followed the same occupation. It is with him that our story opens, for he was a man of considerable ability. He was the inventor of the "Imperial barrell churn," which was the earliest churn of any kind to be patented. The credit of having invented the thrashing machine, usually attributed to Andrew Meikle, was claimed by Rastrick, among others. It is not the place here to go into the early history of the machine. The genesis of Meikle's invention is stated to have been a model which was sent to him by Sir Francis Kinloch of Gilmerton, Bart, who had based his model on a machine he had seen erected by a Mr. Smart in 1772 at Wark, near Morpeth... "

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