Raise The Hammer

Frederick Rastrick was born in August, 1819, in the Staffordshire town of West Bromwich, the third son of John Urpeth Rastrick and his wife, Sarah Jervis. By the time of his birth his father had already achieved wide recognition as a skilled pattern-maker, iron founder and civil engineer. His reputation had been built at the Bridgnorth Foundry, where he turned drawings by pioneers of steam technology like Richard Trevithick into engines, mainly for Cornish mines and West Indian sugar plantations. On occasion he was called upon also to supply cast-iron work for projects like bridges. About the time of Frederick's birth, John Rastrick assumed new responsibilities as the managing partner at Foster, Rastrick & Co., a Stourbridge ironworks where more than 450 men made all kinds of machinery, engines, retorts, boilers, rails and the like.