Richard Garrett & Sons
Coordinates: 52°12′28″N 1°34′33″E / 52.207800°N 1.575796°E
Richard Garrett & Sons was a manufacturer of agricultural machinery, steam engines and trolleybuses. Their factory was Leiston Works, in Leiston, Suffolk, England. The company was founded by Richard Garrett in 1778.
The company was active under its original ownership between 1778 and 1932.
In the late 1840s, after cultivating a successful agricultural machine and implement business, the company began producing portable steam engines. The company grew to a major business employing around 2,500 people. Richard Garrett III, grandson of the company's founder, visited The Great Exhibition of 1851 in London, where he saw some new American manufacturing ideas. Richard Garrett III introduced flow line production – a very early assembly line - and constructed a new workshop for the purpose in 1852. This was known as 'The Long Shop' on account of its length. A machine would start at one end of the Long Shop and as it progressed through the building it would stop at various stages where new parts would be added. There was also an upper level where other parts were made; they would be lowered over a balcony and then fixed onto the machine on the ground level. When the machine reached the end of the shop, it would be complete.
In 1914, following a major fire at the works, it was decided to build a new factory on land that had been owned as a demonstration farm next to the station. From then on the sites were always known as the "Old Works" and the "New Works".
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