Ashley Barrett

Ashley Barrett, Blackmore man made good
In the 18th century, and until as late as 1850, the parish of Blackmore was looked after by the parson of a better-endowed parish nearby. It seems hardly surprising that many of the folk in Blackmore looked for a more sympathetic ministry. This led to early attempts to establish a Baptist congregation. Initial progress was discouraging, including leaders who left abruptly, to join “the followers of Mr Irving”, an early charismatic sect. For four more years the congregation was kept going by the efforts of Mr Clark, a Sunday school teacher, and Ashley Barrett. (For details, see Blackmore Baptist Church Website)
In 1841, Ashley Barrett of Jessops took a lease on about ½ acre of land on the northern side of the village green from Charles George Parker, lord of the manor of Fingrith, and built a Baptist chapel and infant school there. In 1843 he bought the freehold. There is a separate series of papers indicating that he also bought a field to the north of Pitmans (now the site of Blackmore Mead). These lands, with a generous cash fund, formed the endowment of the chapel. (They were secured “by will” against the erection of buildings, but have been largely built over in modern times.)
Ashley Barrett lived at Jessops. His family seems to come from Blackmore, where Philip Barrett was buried in 1617, and Ashley Barrett was born in 1783. It is, however, a little difficult to document, as so many male children were called Ashley. There are monuments in the churchyard to Ashley Barrett, Ashley’s father, who died 2/12/1830, and another of 27/6/1853 to his nephew Ashley, but neither Ashley nor his wife Fanny Willmott are recorded as being buried there. This is hardly surprising, given his religious dissent, but it is interesting to see that his son, Ashley Willmott Barrett, and several of his grandchildren, are buried in the parish church.
The Ashley who built and endowed the Baptist Chapel, though, was not a small time village miller, but the proprietor of an important steam mill in Narrow Street, Limehouse. This mill had five pairs of French burr stones, driven by a 20HP beam (steam) engine. It is not clear why he originally moved to London, but from 1823 to 1827 he is recorded as a corn merchant at (Great) Mazepond, Borough, which now lies across St Thomas Street from London Bridge Station. By about 1830 he was running the Globe Steam Flour Mills in Narrow Street. This was not the first steam mill – that was the Albion Mill in Bermondsey, completed in 1786. A lease of 1841 gives his address as Narrow Street, Ratcliffe Mddx., but in the late 1840’s he had effectively retired, leaving the running of the mill to his son Ashley Wilmott Barrett. In the 1854 Baptist chapel trust, Ashley Barrett, is “gent”, and Ashley Wilmott Barrett is miller (of London House, London Street Stepney, just off Narrow Street). But he only formally transferred possession to his son in 1868, when he was 85.
He leased the steam mill from a man called Overton, who may well have been a Dissenter. It may not be a coincidence that his Mazepond business was next door to a Baptist chapel (now displaced by Guys Hospital). Also, his wife Fanny was born in the parish of St Dunstan’s, London. The church of St Dunstan’s-in-the-East is by London Tower, about 2 miles west of Narrow Street, and St Dunstan’s Stepney is about ½ mile north of Narrow Street. No christening record has been found – the registers of St Dunstan’s-in-the-East were partly destroyed in 1941 – and the most likely marriage record gives her name as “Hannah Mott”. But it may well have been that it was Fanny’s father that helped Ashley Barrett set up the mills, and that Wilmott is her real family name.
His son Ashley Wilmott Barrett ran the mill until he in turn retired. In 1881 a new lease was granted to Jacob Marriage, of Coval Hall Chelmsford. Jacob Marriage is described as a miller in the lease, so he was probably already running one or both of the large water mills in Chelmsford. By 1889 there were two millers, Jacob Marriage at no. 24, and William Moore at no 27, described as “Ratcliff steam mills”. But Ashley Wilmott Barrett must have had some residual interest, because in 1897 he sold the property to William Moore of Farningham. 1881 was a very good time to get out of flour milling – in that year, Henry Simon built the first completely automatic roller flour mill in the world for McDougall Brothers, a predecessor of Rank Hovis. The new process gained rapid acceptance within the industry, and by 1892 over 400 mills worldwide used the 'Simon' system. Within the space of two decades he had revolutionised the milling of wheat – and reduced sharply the financial viability of smaller mills. Marriages, though, survived, in part by specialising in animal feeds, and in part by taking advantage of the late 20th century move back to stoneground flour.
Ashley Barrett lived at Jessops, and there are people in Blackmore who still remember his grandson, who lived there until after the war.

by Bruno Giordan
URL: http://www.blackmorevillage.co.uk/