Life and Early Career
Barrett was born in 1891, at Prestwood Road, Wolverhampton, one of nine children. His father, George Barrett, had been born in rural Essex but came to Wolverhampton and worked in engineering factories. Tom and his eldest brother William served apprenticeships at the pump-making factory of Joseph Evans & Sons, where their father also worked.
During the First World War, Barrett worked at Guy Motors. Rather than Guy's better-known lorries, this work was on small mechanisms such as fuzes for depth charges. As with Barrett's future driver, Kenelm Lee Guinness, this war-work was sufficiently important to excuse military service during the war.
In 1915, Barrett married local girl Lillian Ivy Worthington-Roberts. They moved to Burleigh Road, Wolverhampton, remaining near to Wolverhampton's engineering works. Barrett continued to be an active church-goer and became a member of St. John's Church choir.
In early 1918 Guy began work on aero-engines, planning large orders for the ultimately unsuccessful ABC Wasp and Dragonfly aero-engines. In fact they only managed to produce one complete prototype of each, before the semi-completed production batch was transferred to another factory. After the end of the war, the aero-engine work at Guy was closed. Barrett's appetite for aero-engines had been whetted though and he moved to the nearby Sunbeam works so as to continue it. The market for aero-engines at this time was flooded by war-surplus and so Sunbeam focussed on new engines for airships.
By 1921 though, airship accidents made this work less attractive and so Tom moved into Sunbeam's 'Experimental Department', supporting their successful racing cars, including the Sunbeam 350HP. Sunbeam's road cars were highly regarded in this period and the prestige and engineering innovation derived from the racing effort was seen as a significant part of this.
Read more about this topic: Tom Barrett (riding Mechanic)
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