The Barritts of the Fenlands - Page 6
Richard and William, sons of Samuel and Mary Barritt
Richard Barritt was the second son of Samuel and Mary and he was baptised on the 17th March 1813 at Feltwell at the same time as his elder brother Robert. Richard married Rebecca Laws, a spinster, on the 25th September 1835 at Feltwell and they lived on Feltwell Fen, close to Richard's father. Probably they worked the same land together as he was described as a farmer.
Richard and Rebecca had at least five sons and five daughters between 1836 and
1857. Only one son, Thomas, horn in 1841, who became a sailor, was married and I could find no trace of any children, so the male line for Richard ended there.
Samuel Barritt had died in 1845 and the 1851 Census Returns shows Richard as a farm labourer living on Feltwell Fen. The last mention of Richard we have is at the marriage of his daughter Sarah to Samuel Hodson in 1859. Richard, his wife Rebecca and any surviving children are not mentioned in the 1861 Census at Feltwell or any of the adjacent parishes. Furthermore, I've searched the Registrations of Deaths at the General Register Office from 1859 until the beginning of the twentieth century for both Richard and Rebecca, but found nothing. I can only assume that they emigrated to some distant land before 1861.
William Barritt was the youngest son of Samuel and Mary and he was baptised with his twin sister Rebecca at Feltwell on 3rd July 1822 and re-baptised on 24th August 1836 with his four youngest sisters. William married Sarah Jacob, daughter of George Jacob on 15th October 1842 at Methwold. They lived at Feltwell where William was an agricultural labourer but in 1852 they were inmates at the Union Workhouse at Thetford where their sixth child Jane was born. By 1855 they were living at Methwold and four years later Sarah died at Feltwell giving birih to their eighth child. Sarah was buried at Feltwell on 13th August 1859 aged 37.
Two of William's children, Jane and William Junior, were now boarded Out with Mrs Storkey, a dressmaking widow of Feltwell. On 17th October 1863 William senior married Sarah Langham a widow of Southery and they lived on Larmans Fen. William again went into Thetford Union Workhouse and he died there aged 53. He was buried at Feltwell on 9th March 1871.
One of William's daughters, Elizabeth a twin, went into service to Robert Mitchell of Poppylot Farm, Southery at the age of fifteen. By the time she was nineteen she was housekeeper to James Osler, a licensed victualler and blacksmith of Southery by whom she had one son, Jacob Osler Barritt, born in 1864. Elizabeth Barritt had three daughters, all fathered by James Osler between 1868 and 1873
William Barritt junior, born 1855 at Methwold, was twice married; firstly to Harriet Elizabeth Howlett by whom he had eight children, Harriet having died at Fordham fifteen days after the birth of their last child, and secondly to a widow Rosanna Hart. William and Rosanna lived at Willow Farm, Ten Mile Bank.
© Ron Barritt - March 1995