Thereafter WGB became steward at various places, including Highfield Hall, Uttoxeter, which belonged to the Hon. Enid Lawson and her sister, cousins to the Duke of Rutland. Hilda says her mother, our aunt Florrie, was about 6, so this would have been around 1881, ten years after WGB’s marriage. Highfield Hall was demolished in more recent times, and the materials used to erect a new building which is used as a residential care home for elderly people.
After Highfield Hall, they moved again. The 1881 Census records William George Barratt and his family living in Lower Sleaford Road, Newark. His profession is given as General Domestic Servant. At the same address were Mary, his wife, who was also a General Domestic Servant along with their children Florence, Mary and William.
|
Head |
M |
Male |
43 |
Oxford, England |
General Domestic Ser |
|
|
|
Wife |
M |
Female |
40 |
Newark, Nottingham, England |
General Domestic Ser Wife |
|
|
|
Daur |
|
Female |
6 |
Newark, Nottingham, England |
|
|
|
|
Daur |
|
Female |
4 |
Newark, Nottingham, England |
|
|
|
|
Son |
|
Male |
1 |
Newark, Nottingham, England |
|
|
The next move was to Burton‑on-Trent, where he was for a short time the innkeeper at the Railway Inn, St Paul’s Road East. This was the last step in his interesting life of service, and the period his son, my father, referred to regularly. My brother John has a book with an inscription from that time: Earth ‑Knowledge, published in 1892, has a rubber stamp
W. G. Barratt
Railway Inn
St Pauls St East
Burton on Trent
We know that in 1890 his mother, then Mrs Padbury, died and left him money which his wife insisted he put into the Railway Inn. Did he buy the inn that year? We know from a photograph (see below) that he was in Burton in 1892. He died in Newark in 1901. The 1896 and 1900 directories list the licensee of the Railway Inn, Burton on Trent, as George T. Johnson. There is no mention of WGB — if he did buy it, he did not keep it for very long.
In 1880, there was a William Barratt living at 20 Fenton Villas, St Pauls Street West, Burton. The Railway Inn was in St Pauls Street East, and WGB was there in 1892. There were many William Barratts around at the time.
Mary Barratt, née Morley, seemed to show a certain resignation as she grew older, which she would have needed in order to cope with her peripatetic and rather erratic husband WGB. This photograph was taken in about 1907 or 1908, when she was 67, just a year or two before her death.
