Biography of the BARRATT Family
Harold Osborne Barratt
Joseph Stennett Jr.
Sources
Biography of the BARRATT Family
Joseph Stennett Jr.
Sources
Information for this story is drawn principally from research published by the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society. Details of this and other sources are listed in the link above.
The business was started by George Osborne Barratt in the early 1850's when he was living at 9 & 10 Shepherdess Walk in Hoxton where he started manufacturing sweets, initially producing just a few pounds of sweets each day. He was assisted by his wife who attended to their small shop, and he also employed a female sugar boiler whilst he went out in a pony and trap to find outlets to sell his produce. Business grew rapidly so George bought up adjacent properties in order to expand.
By 1864 the business occupied premises on both sides of Shepherdess Walk. Around 1868, George's eldest son, George William, took over his father's rounds whilst George himself travelled more widely around the country, continuing thus for the next twenty years. His business philosaphy was to make his products affordable to even the poorest people.
By 1880. the works had no more space available to expand so the Allsopp & Co. piano factory in Mayes Road in Wood Green was purchased. Construction was started and the first building was ready for occupation in 1882 and a second a year later. By 1884 Barrat's were employing around 500 people and were one of the largest manufacturers of confectionery and jam in London.
There were about 1200 employees at the factory in September 1890 and a sickness fund for staff was inaugrated that year. In 1906 the number of employess had reached 2000 and they produced 350 tons of sweets per week, making Barrat's the largest confectionery manufacturer in the world.
By the time of his death in 1906, George Osborne Barratt wound down his involvement in the company, leaving his four sons, George William, Frank, Albert and Edward William, to continue the business. However, Edward chose to relinquish his position to his sister Elizabeth Sarah. Her husband Joseph Stennett was also appointed onto the board of directors.
In 1908, the firm was made into a limited company and a co-partnership started by the company allocating £10,000 worth of shares to the 'most attentive and diligent' employees. By then there were nearly 2,000 of them and from these about 300 had an allocation of shares ranging from 15 to 200. The shares remained the property of the company and the dividends were paid to the shareholders. Profits were good: in 1910 the net profit was £32,088, a dividend of 4.5% being paid on the ordinary shares and 6.75% on preference shares. Coal and dock strikes reduced profits in 1912 to £25,624 but they had recovered to £40,175 in 1915. The sugar restriction order of 1917 affected the company badly and there were fears that it might have to close but this was avoided.
The company had little time for Unions and Union labour was not employed in the Engineering Department even in the 1950s. Fines were imposed for trivial offences, lateness being one; indeed Barratts were obsessed with this aspect of work. It was the custom of the firm to give every worker a Christmas present and, in December 1913, this took the form of an alarm clock.
The mild economic euphoria that followed the end of the World War I had diminished by 1923 and there was a steady decline in the economy during the twenties followed by depression starting in 1930. The growth of, and conditions in, the factory during this period must be considered against the economic climate. At the beginning of this period, boilings were still being done over gas fires, though probably not exclusively since a range of Lancashire boilers had been installed in 1911-12 (all hand fired) so that there must have been some process steam demand. Newspaper cuttings state that the factory burned 100 tons per week of coal, which, related to a 70-hour working week and with hand fired Lancashire boilers, might average out to an hourly steam demand of 18,000 lbs. There was little in the way of machinery. Eddie Butler, who started as a van boy in 1924, was transferred to the starch department in 1926 and records that all the work there was done by hand and that there were thousands of starch trays which had to be filled, levelled, printed, deposited and finally emptied. The Mogul machine which does this work mechanically had not been invented. In those days sugar pulling was a hand operation: the boil, perhaps 50 lbs. in weight, was allowed to cool to a plastic state and while soft was thrown over a hook fixed on to the wall. The sugar was pulled out to several feet then doubled back, thrown over the hook and again pulled. This process was repeated until the mass was sufficiently aerated. The work was physically tiring for it had to be done quickly before the mass lost its plasticity. Pulling machines came into use towards the end of the period and those used at Barratts were the brainchild of Frank Barratt. The machine is described in the section devoted to rock manufacture. Frank had several ideas and is regarded as the inventor of the batch roller.
Conditions in the factory were rather spartan. No overalls were provided and workers used sugar sacks, suitably cut and tied, to protect their clothing. There was no canteen, some gas lighting remained and there was a long working day under hot conditions. After the August holiday, work used to become slack and rather than lay workers off they were put to cleaning down and whitewashing the walls in readiness for the event of the year, the Exhibition. This took place in September in a mammoth marquee 140' x 40'; the first one of which had been held in 1896. It was timed to coincide with the Confectionery Fair held at the Agricultural Hall, Islington (later at Earls Court) and over 2,000 different lines were exhibited. The trade came to view and placed their orders and, as an inducement to buy, Barratts gave a 1¼% discount on all orders placed in person with the 50 or so sales staff on duty.
About this time lollipops came on the market and their manufacture will be described here since a comparison can be made, which is reflected in other processes, between working conditions in the 1920s and those in the 1950s. In the 1920s lollies were made in the starch room. The syrup was boiled and then deposited by hand into the cavities previously printed by hand in the starch trays. The trays were about 3'6" x 1'6" x ½" deep and made from wood. These were filled by hand with moulding starch and levelled before printing. The sticks were put in during filling by girls, who had to be very quick. After cooling, the trays were inverted, the adherent starch blown off the lollies, which were then placed into trays for packing. Packing took place in another building and four floors up at that. An army of girls, known as the chain gang, carried stacks of these trays on their heads up four flights of stairs (no lifts then) to the room where the sweets were wrapped in the familiar “Jolly Lolly” greaseproof paper. The same chaingang girls took the empty trays back to the starch room. By 1950 lollipops were made mechanically. The boil was cooled, shaped by hand, put into a batch roller, necked to a 'rope' and this passed to a Forgrove forming machine with only one person in attendance who put the sticks into the correct recess before the plastic sugar was formed and the 'lolly' machine wrapped.
In the transport department a few lorries had come in by 1924 but there were still over 100 horses in use. These were used for all local delivery work also some lucky travellers had them, although the majority humped their heavy bags of samples on foot or by public transport. The lorries all had solid tyres but they used to tackle long journeys for example to Huddersfield, Bristol and the Midlands quite successfully. All horse drawn vehicle and lorry maintenance was carried out in the factory, and for the former there were a large number of tradesmen — harness makers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, stable hands etc. — all necessary to keep a fleet of horse drawn wagons moving.
In the early days of the firm and probably until the 1930s conditions were pretty rough although this was the case in most factories, no overalls were provided and the workers dressed in any old things with aprons made from discarded sugar sacks. Everything was done by hand or by hand operated machines. The buildings were whitewashed and gas jets were in place as standby until the 1920s. The wages paid were not high but in line with similar factories, but the company additionally paid what was known as the September share out where each person who had not been late on more than 10 occasions during the year received £2-10s bonus. The hours of work were from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. and it is recorded that the Directors themselves observed this rule.
Until the 1930s there was no canteen, indeed the lack of this was one of the demands of the strikers in 1908. In the departments where there were still coke fires the workers would place their dinners near to them to be kept warm for eating at the proper time. Later Mr. Frank Barratt had a steam-oven made and installed in the sugar sack room. As a worker clocked on he placed his dinner in the oven and the sack man turned the steam on just before lunchtime; dinners were eaten where it was most comfortable. The directors had their meals in the Board Room. These were cooked by Kate Hussy on a small gas stove in the front office gatehouse.In the 1930s conditions in all trades were bad and at Barratt & Co. there was not a lot of work in most departments. 'Old' Joe Stennett had retired leaving 'Young' Joe in charge and he had a pretty thankless task. This was not made any easier because of family dissension on the Board and, it is said, the fact that sides were taken by the workers. In 1938 'Young' Joe left through ill health and only Harold Osborne Barratt remained.
The business had begun to stagnate, but all through the period of family dissension, Harold Barratt had kept the commercial side steady, running both buying and selling himself. In the latter he realised the importance of gaining the custom of the large stores, for example Woolworth's, as well as that of the multiple grocers of the day. To further this, and in the face of opposition from the Board, he secured the services of Martin Pitter from Crosse & Blackwell and appointed him, with a seat on the Board, to develop this tactic. Pitter soon realised the problems faced by the factory because these affected production, which could not keep pace with the large volume of business which he was generating. Arising from his discussions on the subject with H.O. Barratt, a manager from Crosse & Blackwell known to Pitter, one George Walsh, was appointed initially as Quality Manager, a title which would not upset anybody.
Walsh soon found that the factory was in a dangerous state as regards to some of the plant and he set about rectifying this by starting a programme of modernisation and updating equipment and with it came improvements in methods and production. Towards the end of this period he was made Factory Manager (later Works Director), and a good deal of the reorganisation work was carried out under wartime conditions which, in some ways was helpful since there was less internal opposition and things were done which, under peacetime conditions, might have been looked at more closely. From that period the company progressed and by the end of the War it was in a healthy condition. By the end of the 1930s things were changing for the better. A social club had been formed by G.Walsh and M.Pitter and this was later taken over and run by Doreen Barratt; it provided a club room, snooker, darts, dancing and a dramatic section, there was also a fishing club which was popular. The canteen was opened on the top floor of the old stables building and there were separate rooms for workers, senior staff and Board members, for the latter two, meals were not paid for. A surgery was established with a full time nurse and visiting doctor and the factory also had a full time dental centre and chiropodist.
1945-1965 was a period of consolidation and expansion. The company was flourishing after the war years and the only difficulty was a shortage of labour, slight in the first years of the period but becoming increasingly difficult towards the end. Men for process work, girls for light work and packing were in very short supply and it was almost impossible to recruit mechanics and electricians who were so necessary for the rapid mechanisation needed to overcome the labour shortage.
Harold Barratt was Chairman and Managing Director with Dudley Saward (later well known as an author and particularly for his biographies of 'Bomber' Harris and Bernard Lovell) as his personal assistant, later as Assistant Managing Director. George Walsh was Works Director, W.E. Whitaker Chief Engineer and D.R. Felstead Chief Chemist. Saward left in 1957 and Dennis Randall joined the company first as personal assistant to Mr. Barratt then as Assistant Managing Director as will be detailed later. In 1960 a 'five year plan' was drawn up for further mechanisation of the processes, orders were good and everything looked very rosy. At this time Felstead resigned to devote more time to his own laboratory furnishing business and W.E. Whitaker was replaced as Chief Engineer by J. Milne. Alas Harold Barratt died in 1965 and this event, although it was not realised at the time, sounded the death knell of the company.
The company was taken over by Bassetts in a friendly transaction in 1966 for about £4 million, but production faltered due to poor business decisions, and the factory closed in the late 1970's. The brand went through further changes of hand and even went out of production for a while before being reinstated.
Not long after the death of Harold Osborne Barratt, the company received an informal approach from the Chairman of George Bassett & Co. Ltd., of Sheffield, one D. Gordon Johnson, with a view to a 'merger', a euphemism for a take-over, which is precisely what happened. At the time Barratts were doing very well indeed and they were ahead in the five-year modernisation programme. Geo. Bassett were also doing well, but their type of business was fundamentally different from that of Barratts in that the former made only a few lines on a very modern mass production scale; their products were promoted by extensive advertising and their export side was excellent. They had bought out Wilkinsons of Pontefract and owned the Dutch liquorice firm of De Faam in Breda. Unlike Barratts they had few labour problems. The two firms should have been very complementary for there was little competition between them since their productions were so different. Indeed there were positive advantages in merging due to reducing transport costs. For these reasons Barratts decided to talk.
After many discussions it was agreed in October 1966 that Bassetts would take over Barratts and the former company acquired the whole of the share capital: from that time Barratts became a wholly owned subsidiary while, for the time being, maintaining their identity. Barratts were represented on the main board at Sheffield by Geo, Walsh and Dennis Randall, who were greatly outnumbered by five to two.
For four years between the take-over in October 1966 and October 1970 most things seemed to go well at Wood Green, no restrictions were noted, production was excellent and in excess of targets. In this Wood Green was greatly helped by the output from Halton's of Uddingston factory (a Scottish firm acquired in 1960) but within two years Bassetts had taken over the control of the Scottish company and, without a detailed knowledge of the processes, only succeeded in reducing output generally and the quality of some lines. Nevertheless these four years were very profitable at Wood Green. By 1970 G. Walsh had retired and D. Randall was Managing Director. The forecast for five years had been given and, despite the loss of control of the Scottish factory, had been exceeded every year. However, the parent company was not content to stand by and reap the rewards. The Wood Green factory became saddled with overheads from Sheffield, for example, Group Engineering, which it did not use or want, yet still turned in profits.
As a result of continued friction engendered by interference from Sheffield and the resultant reaction to this by D. Randall, the Group Chairman appointed consultants to give their advice: this was that Wood Green be closed, production to be expanded at Sheffield, Johnson to remain as Chairman and Randall to be Chief Executive. Not surprisingly the last recommendation did not find favour with the Board, a new Chief Executive was advertised for and D. Randall resigned.
The site at Wood Green struggled on for a few more years but there was a steady decline all round. Buildings fell into poor repair, some machinery was taken to Sheffield and generally the factory was fast becoming a poor relation. Despite all this it made some contribution to overall profits and, at a Dinner in 1977, the Chairman said of Wood Green "we must never kill the goose that lays the golden eggs" a death sentence if ever there was one. Within six months production had ceased, the remaining plant was taken to Sheffield, sold or scrapped and the gates finally closed in 1980. The last building to remain in situ is the office block with its fine frontage.
Right from the start the company set out to give good value to the child customer, it did not aim to make high-class low volume confectionery but to produce high edible volume for children. Thus the majority of their lines were low denomination count lines sold for low prices such as 10, 8 or 4 sweets for a penny. This policy meant that weights and sizes and, in foam work, the density also, had to be very closely controlled. This was not easy. To show the importance of this factor the example of aniseed balls may be taken. These sold for 8 a penny. Suppose that a small increase in the diameter occurred, the change in weight would be proportional to the cube of this increase: with a weekly output of many thousands of balls this would result in a serious increase in the cost of materials. That Barratt & Co. was able to overcome these problems was due to the experience and vigilance of their employees at foreman level; many of these had worked for the company since leaving school and were well aware of the implications of strict control. In this they were helped by a shallow management structure, which gave the Managing Director and his assistants direct access to the department supervisors. Discussion on problems was always direct and no information or instruction was passed on second-hand. The result of this was good communications in both directions to obtain clear and swift reactions when there was need. All this was Barratt's reason for success.