Biography:
1. Richard Ricketts started as a general Labourer in the Corning House on the 11th March 1797, and was paid 1/6d per day. He was a Private in the Volunteer Company in September 1798 and still working in the Corning House (Supply 5/219 dated September 1798).
2. A letter to the Board dated the 19 April 1801 stated that the new Corning House blew up on the 18th April with a tremendous explosion, and that nine men in the building, including Richard Ricketts, were killed, together with four horses (Supply 5/220).
3. A Petition dated the 24th April 1801 (Supply 5/194) was signed by Sarah Ricketts along with the other widows, and in two cases, mothers of the deceased, requesting relief in their distress.
4. Sarah, Richard's widow, was aged 32, and was left with 3 children, a boy aged 10, a girl aged 5, and another girl aged 1. The five-year-old had been severely burnt when her clothes caught fire and her left arm was injured so badly, she would not be able to use it for the rest of her life (Supply 5/220 dated the 29th April 1801).
5. Supply 5/194 dated the 5th May1801, recorded that Richard's pay and allowance was to be continued to Sarah Ricketts, who was to receive the whole of her husband's back pay.
6. The Ordnance Board queried payments made to the widows killed in the explosion at the Corning House on the 16th June 1801. Rickett's basic pay was 10/6d per week, plus 1/6d on account of "the severity of the times." The Ordnance Board decreed that the widows' pensions should be based upon the husband's or son's basic pay, and was not to include the extra "due to the severity of the times." The Board agreed that the pension awarded to Mrs Sarah Ricketts should be 10/6d per week (Supply 5/194).
7. On the 4th September 1805, the Ordnance Board agreed to pay Sarah Ricketts an additional 3/6d per week to each of her two younger children until they were eighteen or married.
8. Supply 5/231 dated the 8th November 1818, recorded persons to whom pensions or charitable allowances granted by the Board as widows, orphans or relations of those who had lost their lives in this manufactory, or who have been superannuated on accounts of trusts received, or for length of service in the departments. Among the recipients mentioned was Ann Ricketts, whose father had worked in the Corning house. She was one of the daughters mentioned in (7) above, and received a pension of 3/6d per week commencing the 1st September 1805. Ann reached her 18th birthday on the 20th December 1818, when her pension duly ceased.
