Biography of Joseph STENETT
[Ref. P.839]
Biography
Sources
Biography of Joseph STENETT
[Ref. P.839]
Sources
Information for this story is drawn principally from research published by the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society which includes excerpts from the booklet "I worked at Barratt's" by Doreen Barratt. 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 in Albert Place. He moved to Shepherdess Walk where business grew rapidly so he bought up adjacent properties in order to expand. By 1864 the business occupied premises on both sides of Shepherdess Walk. Around 1868, George William, took over his father's rounds.
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. 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 by 1906 the number of employees had reached 2000 and they produced 350 tons of sweets per week, making Barrat's the largest confectionery manufacturer in the world.
During this period, George Osborne Barratt wound down his involvement in the company, leaving his four sons, George William, Edward William, Frank and Albert, to continue the business. However, by mutual agreement, Edward gave his position to his sister, Elizabeth Sarah Stennett.
An important event took place in 1908 when 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. 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; Mr. G.W. Barratt personally presented about 2,000.
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. Among his other brainwaves was a device, which enabled a one armed person to put on a coat unaided. He also was a part owner in a company which manufactured a repeating rifle (The Esser-Barratt Repeating Arms Co., Ltd.). The company was formed in 1906 but the rifle was not a success since, on tests, it overheated with rapid fire.
Conditions in the factory were, by present day standards, not good, and the manufacturing processes were labour intensive. Boilings would have been done over coke fires and, later on, by gas heated pans. There would have been little machinery although hand operated machines were in use. 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 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 H.O. Barratt remained.
The business had for some years previously begun to stagnate but all through the period of family dissension H.O. 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.
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.
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.