John Urpeth Rastrick

Parents were John and Mary (neé Urpeth) Rastrick, He was born on 26 January 1780 at Bullers Green near Morpeth. He was apprenticed to father who was an engineer at the Ketley Ironworks managed by William Reynolds. In 1807 or in 1808 he joined John Hazeldine of Bridgnorth - a foundry business where he was involved with Trevithick engines including Catch Me Who Can in 1808 (obtained from evidence to Liverpool & Manchester Railway Bill). There is a drawing signed by JUR for a paddle boat dated 27 March 1813. Rastrick enjoyed considerable autonomy at Bridgnorth. Work included a cast iron structure for crossing the Wye at Chepstow opended in 1816. He joined James Foster, proprietor of John Bradley & Co., forming Foster, Rastrick & Co of Stourbridge. This firm produced much ironwork for buildings, including the British Museum, the General Post Office in London and the Long Room of Customs House. He retained his autonomy and was engineer to the Stratford and Moreton Railway in 1822 which used continuous wrought iron rail.

He testified for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway in 1825. In 1828 Horatio Allen, agent of the Delaware & Hudson Canal Co., ordered the Stourbridge Lion from Foster Rastrick and the Agenoria was a similar locomotive constructed for the Shutt End Railway in 1829. Rastrick  was one of the judges at the Rainhill trials: see notebook below:.

He was involved in the Grand Junction Railway and was engineer-in-chief of the London & Brighton Railway where his works included the notable Ouse Valley Viaduct and the Preston Road Viaduct which survived severe bomb damage in WW2. He joined the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1827, became a Fellow of the Royal Society on 19 January 1837 and died at Sayes Court in Surrey on 1 November 1856. He is buried in Brighton. His notebooks are preserved at the Science Museum. John Fowler wrote to The Times on 24 September 1891 to observe that Rastrick had received insufficient acknowledgement for his works, especially those associated with the L&BR. See Backtrack, Volume 9, page 106. Biography by G.C. Boase, revised by M.W. Kirby, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.

Brown, W.H. History of the first locomotives in America.
Dickinson H.W. and Arthur Lee The Rastricks — Civil Engineers.Trans. Newcomen Soc., 1923, 4, 48-74.

Ottley lists several publications, the most important being:
Walker, J. and Rastrick, J.U. Report to the directors of the Liverpool & Manchester Railway on the comparative merits of locomotives and fixed engines as a moving power. Liverpool: 1829. 80pp.
Ottley 6402 noted that in favour of fixed engines: Ottley also puts document into its context and shows that there were several editions.
Ottley 6361 which is in effect Rastrick's Rainhill notebooks directs the searcher to C.F. Dendy Marshall's Centenary history of the LMR

2005-12-05