George Rennie

Who was George Rennie?

George Rennie, agriculturist, son of James Rennie, farmer, of Phantassie, Haddingtonshire, and elder brother of John Rennie, the engineer, was born on his father's farm in 1749.

On leaving school he was sent by his father, at the age of sixteen, to Tweedside to make a survey of a new system of farming which had been adopted by Lord Kames, Hume of Ninewells, and other landed gentry of the district. In 1765 he became superintendent of a brewery which his father had erected. The elder Rennie died in 1766, and, after leasing the business for some years, the son conducted it on a large scale from 1783 to 1797, when he finally relinquished it to a tenant. Rennie then devoted himself to the pursuit of agriculture on the Phantassie farmland and in 1787 he employed Andrew Meikle, the eminent millwright to erect one of his drum thrashing-machines. This was driven by water. When Meikle's claims as the inventor were disputed, Rennie wrote a letter in his favour, which was printed in A Reply to an Address to the Public, but more particularly to the Landed Interest of Great Britain and Ireland, on the subject of the Thrashing Machine.