Biography of Harold Osborne BARRATT
[Ref. Q.801]
Profile
Sweet factory
Sea voyages
Electoral Registers
Directories
Index for BARRATT
Biography of Harold Osborne BARRATT
[Ref. Q.801]
Sweet factory
Sea voyages
Electoral Registers
Directories
Index for BARRATT
Harold Osborne Barratt was born in Shepherdess Walk, Hoxton New Town, Middlesex in 1887. He was the last of the seven children of George William and Lucy Barratt, and their only surviving son.
The census of 1891 shows that the family had moved home to Ashford in Priory Road, Enfield, Middlesex. The household included a governess called Kate McConachly.
In 1909, Harold graduated from the University of London with a B.Sc. degree.
When the census was taken in 1911, it shows that the family were then living at Heathside in Little Heath, Potter's Bar, Hertfordshire. It also records that Harold, at the age of 23, was Managing Director of Barratt & Co. Ltd. sweet manufacturing business.
In 1913, Harold married Olive Lawson in Castle Ward, Northumberland after which they went on honeymoon in Italy. She was a daughter of Frederick and Eleanor Lawson. Harold is recorded as being a Lieutenant in the Cameronians, otherwise known as The Scottish Rifles. His military activity during World War 1 is not known.
In 1914, Harold's address on the electoral register was Earlstoke, Osborne Road, Little Heath, Potter's Bar, Herts. By the following year, he had moved to Beaulah in Waverley Road, Enfield. The registers for those two years also note that he was the owner of a row of seven properties in Priory Road and four other properties in Ashford Avenue.
Son Desmond Osborne was born in 1916 but sadly died very soon afterwards.
The electoral register for 1915 shows that Harold had moved home to 37 Bycullah Road in Enfield, Middlesex.
In 1921, Harold and Olive took a cruise aboard the Elders & Fyffes banana boat R.M.S.Camito. It was a round trip from Avonmouth departing on 14 March and returning on 19 April. The voyage would have taken them via Trinidad to Jamaica where the ship would have called at up to five different ports to load. This was the first of many sea voyages that the couple would make.
The census taken in June 1921 confirms Harold and Olive back at home at 37 Bycullah Road. The household supported parlourmaid Georgina Rose Grace Baker and cook Ellen Elizabeth Wadham. There was also South African born lodger Phyllis Holt Ramsbottom who was a nurse at The London Hospital.
Late in 1922 Harold and Olive took a trip to Manaus on the river Amazon in Brazil, travelling by sea from Liverpool. In 1927 they went by ship to Bermuda. The 1927 Electoral Register shows Harold and Olive at their home at 37 Bycullah Road as usual but also lists Harold at 16 Waverley Road in Enfield. He is shown as owner and resident of both properties.
It is an assumption that Harold and Olive did not have any more children naturally, but it does appear that they adopted three boys, as their names do not appear in the register of births. Spencer R O Barratt, born about 1828, became an addition to the family. Gilbert Paul Osborne Barratt who was born in 1930 also came into the family which was still located at 37 Bycullah Road in Enfield. Jeremy Guy Osborne Barratt arrived in 1931 but did not survive beyond that year.
Harold was keeping the commercial side of the business at Barratt's steady, running both buying and selling himself. However, he found time to take his family for holidays. In 1935, he took Olive and their son by sea to Bermuda. The ship's manifest showed their address as Hailey Hall in Hertfordshire. In 1938 they took all three of their children by sea to Madiera.
The 1939 register lists Harold and Olive living at Hailey Hall in Hoddeston, Hertfordshire. With them was Ruth H Oliver, a nursery governess, presumably to look after the children who were away at school at that time.
At the begining of 1949, Harold went to Capetown by himself. In 1952 he went again but took his son Spencer with him. In 1953 he took his wife Olive to Madiera then Teneriffe before returning home. The manifests for all these voyages showed that his address was still at Hailey Hall and his occupation was a director and a manufacturing confectioner.
Harold's wife Olive died in 1959. Two years later, when he was 74 years old, he married 57 year old Manchester born spinster Margaret Shields in the Roman Catholic church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and St.Joseph in Ware, Hertfordshire. In 1964 they are listed as living at 143 Cockfosters Road in Cockfosters, Hertfordshire. Harold and Margaret were still at that address the following year when he died at the Potters Bar and district hospital on 13 November, having been seriously unwell. Harold had been a mainstay of Barratt & Co. and, with his death, the company fell into decline.