James Barratt
BARRATT, James MICE (1858-1921)
James Barratt was born in 1858 in Philack, Cornwall. He was the son of James Barratt and Grace Barratt (née Blamey) and educated in England. Barratt joined the Contractors Chas. Deacon & Company, probably as a pupil in 1874 (he was then aged 16), and worked with them on various railway works until 1879. After moving to New South Wales in 1880 and participating in several military surveys controlled by Major T.S. Perrott for Colonel Scratchley RE., he returned to England in 1881 and worked with Messrs Lucas & Bird on the Hull and Barnsley Railway.
In 1881 he was living with his civil engineer brother Thomas in London at his brother in law Charles Deacon’s house; Deacon was a contractor.
Following a move to Western Australia with Thomas in 1884, and work with Forrest and Angove, who were Land and Stock Agents and Licensed Surveyors, James surveyed and prepared plans for the branch railway from Bayswater to the Perth Race Course, and then prepared plans for a railway from Beverley to Albany.
In 1886 he and his brother were admitted as Associate Members of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
Elected a councillor of the City of Perth in 1887, James prepared plans with Henry Saunders for a scheme to supply water to Perth and Fremantle from a concrete dam on Munday Brook. They subsequently sold these plans to Edward Keane and Neil McNeil.
After dissolving his partnership with Saunders in 1888, Barratt took W.H. Angove as his partner, and moved with him to Albany where they carried out several surveys for the WA Land Company which was building the railway to Beverley. He dissolved this partnership in 1889, and returned to Perth in 1990.
James Barratt then moved to Melbourne, where he formed an association with Baxter and Saddler, with whom he worked on the railway at Parkes in 1892-99 and the railway from Bundaberg to Gladstone in Queensland in 1896-97. He worked for the Zinc Corporation at Broken Hill 1906‐08, for the Shire of Coolamon in New South Wales 1910-12, and for the Commonwealth Government on the Naval Base at Garden Island in Western Australia 1912-13.
Between 1913 and 1916 James Barratt had a series of appointments as Shire Engineer of Turon, Dalgety, Bellingen, Coolah and Mitchell. After further work in the Eastern States, he resigned from the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1919, possibly because he was retiring. James Barratt died at his residence at 128 Grey Street, East Melbourne, on September 21, 1921.
References:
RSC proposals ... Saunders and Barratt ...water supply to Perth and Fremantle‘ V&P WA1887, A18.
GG 1888 p270,419; 1889 9293; 1893 p241.
STAN p220, etc.
LPG p158.
HUNT p6.
WESS pp22 24
