B.I. Barlow, Esq. 
(1814-1866)
6 July 1863

Volume 10, page 337, sitting number 13,717.

Born on 29 January 1814 at Hindley near Wigan, Benjamin Irlam Barlow was the first son of Richard Barlow, yeoman, and his wife Hannah, daughter of Thomas and Hannah Shovelton. 

His baptism on 13 March 1814 was registered in in the Non-Conformist Registers, His parents were apparently Presbyterians. 

On 4 April 1839 at Farnworth in Lancashire he married Hannah Bolton, daughter of Edward Bolton. According to several online sources, Hannah was a Quaker. At the time of his marriage, Benjamin was a ‘Cashier.’

The marriage produced four sons and five daughters. 

The seventh of their nine children was the ceramicist Hannah Bolton Barlow (1851-1916), who has an entry in the Dictionary of National Biography. According to another biography:

‘When she was only a few years of age her father, Benjamin Irlam Barlow, removed with his numerous family to the Grange, Hatfield, Broad Oak, Essex, where, in the cultivation and improvement of a small estate, he gratified his taste for country life, while retaining his appointment as a bank manager, a position which he held upwards of twenty-five years, though he died at the comparatively early age of fifty-two. There can be no doubt that his love of art, and his especial fondness for animals, and indulgence in allowing his children a great variety of pets, combined with his example as a thoughtful and loving observer of nature, materially aided in developing the talent which Miss Barlow from early childhood evinced for the delineation of animal form and character’ (English Female Artists, Ellen Creathorne Clayton, 1876). 

Benjamin Irlam Barlow was the manager of the London and County Bank in Bishop Stortford, Herts. 

The 1861 census shows the family living at Carter’s Farm, Hatfield Broad Oak, Essex. Benjamin gave as his profession ‘Manager of Branch Bank / Farmer of 250 acres as owner-occupier employing 16 men, 5 boys & 3 women.’

Benjamin Irlam Barlow died on 5 December 1866 at his residence in Essex. He left an estate valued at £2000. 

‘DIED. On the 5th inst., at the Grange, Hatfield Broad Oak, Essex, in his 53rd year, Benjamin Irlam Barlow, Esq., Manager of the London and County Bank, Bishop Stortford, Herts.’ (Bury and Norwich Post, 11 December 1866).