George Osborne Barratt
George Osborne Barratt (c1828-1906) founder of Barratt and Co
Born at London the son of William Barratt and his wife Caroline Jane Harriskine
1849 Married at Westminster to Sarah Peterson and had five sons and five daughters
1891 Residing at 175 Stroud Green, Islington: George O. Barratt (age 63 born London), Retired Confectioner. With his wife Sarah.[1]
1905 Death of his wife at Margate in her 77th year, of Holly Mount, Crouch Hill.[2]
1906 October 03rd. Died.
1906 Obituary.[3]
Mr. George Osborne Barratt, the Inventor of “stickjaw,” almond rock, Yankee Panky, rainbow balls, and other confections famous the world over, has just passed away at the ripe age of seventy-nine years.
Children especially will deplore his death, for how many of them had come to regard the founder of the firm of Barratt and Co., Wood Green, as a veritable Santa Claus.
Mr. Barratt’s career furnishes another picturesque and interesting story to the increasing number of trade romances. Commencing business in the humblest possible way in Shepherdess-walk, City-road, about sixty years ago, he leaves behind him at his death an organisation employing nearly 2,000 workpeople and turning out over 300 tons of sweetstuff weekly.
During a lifetime remarkable for its strenuousness, Mr. Barratt accomplished many things. He will go down to history as the man who brought wholesome sweets within reach of the poorest purse, and as the first to pack confectionery in boxes and label them.
“Stickjaw,” which brought him fame, was really the result of an accident. This was after he had started as a confectioner in Shepherdess-walk, with only his wife and a sugar boiler to help him.
One morning Mr. Barratt, to his horror, found that his sugar boiler had not grained the batch of cocoanut candy. Not a moment was to be lost, for customers were waiting, so he had it poured into tins as usual, trusting to Providence that the stuff would set before it reached the shopkeepers.
But it didn’t; yet, in spite of its altered appearance, it sold as usual, and when next he called, all his customers gave “repeat orders” for what they termed “that stuff that sticks the jaw.” Thus it came about that “stickjaw” and the name of Barratt became synonymous. He also introduced the famous Tithborne Rock,
At the time of the trial it would have been difficult to find a confectioner’s shop in the kingdom which did not display in the window a box of this wonderful confection with a card bearing the following couplet;—
Crack the rock where’er you will, You'll find Sir Roger in it still.
It is on record that “Sir Roger” himself many a time and oft bought the rock in vain endeavours to solve the mystery of the ineffaceable likeness, but it remained Mr. Barrett’s secret for a long time.