Ben Barratt

Ben was born in Oldham, Lancashire in England around the year 1822. This much is clear from the information contained in later UK census returns, but unfortunately we know little more at present. We don’t know exactly where in Oldham he was born, or even who his parents were.

We do not know exactly when Ben married, and it is possible that he was never formally married at all as there are some curious details in his history.
This is suggested by the detail on his son Joseph's birth certificate, where his mother is shown as Betty Kershaw (formerly Travis). It was normal practice for the mother to give her married name in such circumstances, so perhaps at the time of Joseph's birth, Ben and Betty were not actually married. However, given that both Joseph and his sister Sarah would later be married in Congregational Chapels, it would seem that the family, if not necessarily devout, were at least members of a particular non-conformist group, suggesting that Ben would not have been the type of man to have lived with a common-law wife. Perhaps therefore the most likely explanation is that the marriage was not registered.

In any event we might expect Ben and Betty to have married before 1851 as their first child, a daughter named Mary Ann, was born in 1852. The next year, in the summer of 1853, Betty fell pregnant again, and in February 1854 she gave birth to a boy, their only son Joseph. At the time, Ben and his young family were living at Bath Bank in Oldham and he was working as a cotton weaver.

In April 1861 Ben, Betty and their two children were living in Dickinson Street, Oldham. He was still working as a cotton weaver, as was Betty. Both Mary and Joseph were attending school. Dickinson Street is still in existence, lying parallel to the bottom of Greenacres Road just before it reaches Huddersfield Road. The houses in the area were relatively new since they do not appear in the 1848 OS map of the area, and they cannot therefore have been more than twelve years old at the time.

They were presumably built to accommodate the increasing workforce needed to sustain the growing number of mills, iron and tool works in the area. A school and a Wesleyan chapel were also built around the same time in the vicinity, and it may be that Ben's children attended this school. Most of their neighbours were also involved in the textile industry, being cotton weavers and winders, but some worked in the machine tool industry and there was even a family of cloggers in the street.

Four years later, in 1865, Ben and Betty had their third child, another daughter, whom they named Sarah Jane. It is not yet known when Ben and his family moved from Dickinson Street, but between 1869 and 1877, they lived at 2, Court 2, Shaw Street in Oldham. After that they moved again, this time to 4, Spring Bank Terrace. Unfortunately, this street no longer exists, but the 1891 census return indicates that it was a road containing some 12 houses, off the Manchester Road, adjoining both Spring Bank Street, Spring Bank, and Spring Bank Lodge. This is the same location as the current Spring Bank Street in the Werneth area.