Just when I thought I had finished looking at this dodgy character from history, I find another article which sheds further light on his dealings in the area.
This is another obituary piece from The Dudley Herald of 11th May 1918 following his fatal bolted horse death a week before. Some of this I have covered before, but there is a greater level of detail in this piece, which although a little sycophantic towards the one armed bandit protagonist in parts, is very informative nonetheless.
It looks at “The interesting career” of old Sam, from a family of brickmakers and his sons who would carry on the work.
It gives an account of the accident which I have already looked at HERE.
What’s new.
- It is stated that he purchased the lease of The Ratlechain Brickworks “30 years ago”- therefore this would have been 1888. This does contradict the statement made in The British clayworker article of 1908 which claimed he took the lease six years earlier. Compare this with the evidence offered by the man himself at the trial where he claimed damages from The canal board for the breach in 1899.
- Who knows what stories were told to suit the audience or perhaps this shows he was just a liar.
- It is stated that the marlhole at this time had been disused for many years and was filled with water! FFS it would be again and during most of its history. 😆 For reference, in a much later planning application the year of 1846 is given as the very start of quarrying operations at the rattlechain brickworks.
- We already know about the Stour Valley brickworks which I covered here, but I do not know that he also had an interest in The Wellington Brickworks down the road in Tipton. It now makes sense to me as to why a street was named after him in this particular area. Not surprisingly, it appears that he filled this in and profited from housing on top of this.
WELLINGTON BRICKWORKS
The OS map above shows the location of the Wellington Works off Park Lane East. The workings and pit are visible. According to research on this website, Barnett had three works on the go at once including the Wellington works shown on the 1884 OS map and in a trade directory in 1892.
The brickworks would have been in part across what is now Peel Street
and also this car park
To me this suggests that Barnett had a strategy for buying then ruining works quickly for profit in selling them on for something else. Houses would be built on the land he infilled at Wellington by 1901! The conman Sydney Sheldon would do a very similar trick in the next century. The article continues to state that S.B was also involved with the Titford Brickworks.
- As a result of these activities, the piece suggests that he was probably the largest manufacturer of bricks in the region.
- As stated above, this was just a side line of how he made money. New to me here are the statements that he also built villas and houses in Burnt Tree.
- A damning statement is made concerning land around one of his works- I think the Stour valley which would have closed by now placing soil on wasteland to serve as “grazing land”. This was no charitable act however- he would have doled these out to the local water boaters to keep their nags for profit.
- Reference is made to the infamous September 9th 1899 breach, which I looked in detail at HERE. I will look more at this in light of the judge and judgement in Barnett’s favour who was involved in the trial further on.
- His land dealings also included an estate in Rhyl.
- FREEMASON
I suppose I should have known this, and this now makes a great deal of sense as to how this geezer was able to get away with everything that he did and how fortune favoured him no doubt due to his corrupt homoerotic bunch of “brothers”.
In the case of the action taken against the canal company, which was a total miscarriage of justice in that it was entirely his fault as far as I am concerned, and I believe an insurance fiddle to destroy the rattechain brickworks in the same way that he had wrecked all of the others before. The placing of ash on the banks in this case should be read in conjunction as to what it is stated he did with the soil on the other brickworks.
As for the judge, Justice Thomas Bucknill, this corrupt Conservative politician was a well known freemason, got where he was because of this, and I absolutely believe that the only way in which Barnett won was because of their sharing the “great architect of the universe” twisted ideology degrees. Bucknill had gone to the great lodge in the sky three years earlier before Barnett. Freemasonry as far as I am concerned is one of the most treacherous cults to ever exist, polluting business, destroying lives like chess pieces and adopting the pretence of “charity” to further its own selfish aims of control. Like the Fabian Society and The Society of Friends, any secret society alliance of the judiciary, the police and the political class is a fraternity of avarice whatever they claim to be otherwise.
The very detailed account of the events leading to the death of Barnett are given below, and offer the best insight I have seen in relation to this. As I have said before and will again, I do not believe this man or his family should be feted as some type of industrial history heroes. We are left with a landscape they ruined, a pocket watch ticking timebomb, and further ruined by those like them, Sheldon, the two Johnnies, and of late the Kelly clan. Many decisions made concerning this site continue to make me believe that something or someone beyond anyone’s control or seeing eye is making them in a private room wearing fancy aprons. 😀
Indeed, call me a “conspiracy theorist”, I don’t care, but perhaps the answer has been in plain sight all along, and they do like to put one over on us, don’t they with symbols.
A building project which commenced in the 1970’s
As in The Temple of Solomon and Temple Mount.
Scene of the accident a few years later for illustration, and probably one of the lamp posts where Barnett met his doom.