Benjamin Irish, or Ben as everyone knew him, was probably one of the most well known notable people of Sawtry. He was born in Ramsey, Huntingdonshire in 1863 to David and Lucy Irish. His father was born in Devon in 1798 and was a Baptist minister. His mother Lucy was his father’s second wife. David Irish first married Ann Parrott in 1819 and then Lucy Grunwell of Kings Ripton in 1860. There was a big age gap between Ben Irish’s father and mother. His father was 64 when Ben was born in 1863, his mother was 36. Ben’s father died at the age of 66 in 1865, two years after Ben was born so grew up without a father. Ben had a sister, Anne Irish born in 1861. On the 1861 Ramsey census for the Irish family, they also had two of David Irish’s grandchildren by his first marriage, living with them, Fanny Irish aged seven and one year old George Irish. By 1881 Ben Irish was 18 and was a Drapers Assistant. On the census of that year, he was living at St Ives, sharing a boarding house with several other people of the same age who were also in the retail trade. Ben was married in 1885 to Annie Turner of  Lutterworth, Leicestershire. Annie was the daughter of a butcher, Thomas Turner and his wife Mary. By 1891 Ben had obviously done well for himself and had moved to Peterborough. At 29 he was a publican and was part owner of what is now the Bull Hotel on Westgate. The Bull Inn as it was originally known, was once a Coaching Inn and on the 1891 census it shows his address as Broadway. At that time there were two entrances to the Bull Hotel. The second entrance on Broadway is still there but is no longer used. In the next ten years between 1891 and 1911 he had sold his share in the Bull Hotel and had moved to Sawtry to become a gentleman farmer. At the turn of the century, farmers were wealthy landowners and Ben had obviously made his fortune as he employed many villagers to work as domestic staff and agricultural workers on his farmland. He lived in the Manor House on the corner of Fen Lane and Tinkers Lane and now known as the Squire of the village, Ben Irish was a benevolent man who did much to help the villagers. His farm manager was Reginald Paddison, who lived at Whitehall, Coppingford then moved to his grandfather's house when he died, the three story Manor House that was once the farmhouse for Whitehouse Farm that stood where Wellside Surgery is now located.  Ben Irish the farmer prospered. In 1911 the farms were doing well, the villagers of Sawtry had agricultural jobs and farm cottages to live in.  Then in 1914 the Great War came and men from the village were going off to war. This left farms in Sawtry just as in every other village and hamlet in the country, seriously shorthanded with war being declared  in August 1914 just as the harvest was about to be brought in. Grain still had to be grown and harvested, bread to be baked and villagers to be fed so Ben Irish and the other Sawtry farmers had to find a way to keep the work on the farms going. Many local women already worked on the farms to help support their families and many more women worked in their husband’s jobs while they were away at the front. Ben was already too old to enlist and he and his wife didn’t have any children but his farm manager and Master of the Hunt, Reginald Paddison’s son went to the front and was killed on the Somme. Many other Sawtry men who went to war didn’t come home. Some who had been Army reservists, went at the beginning of the war and were killed early on. It was towards the end of the First World War that a solution was found by the Government of the day to keep the farms going by creating The Women’s Land Army in 1917 and although it only saw a year of service as the War ended in 1918 when it was disbanded, but came into its own during the Second World War when it was reformed in 1939. After the Great War was over and the men started coming home, it was decided by a Committee in Sawtry as in all towns, villages and hamlets across the country, that a Memorial to the Fallen should be erected and funds were collected for this, Ben, being very generous to this fund. The original memorial stood near the gates of Ben Irish’s Manor House near the Green and Tinkers Lane. It was later moved to All Saints Church. He also gave a piece of land that he owned up Gidding Road, as a community place that Ex servicemen and their families and the villagers could enjoy as a permanent memorial to those from the village who didn’t come home. This building stands today and we know it as the Ex Service and Working Men’s Club but when it was first built it looked very different. It was a long black building made of wood that looked like a Nissan Hut and everyone gave it the nickname “The Hut”. It provided a community space for the village like the Old School Hall does today. In the early 1920’s Ben Irish began dabbling in horse racing. He already owned fox hunting and farm horses. His farm manager Reginald Paddison, was Master of the Hunt. The horses were stabled at the back of the Manor House on the Green , accessed down the little roadway that goes in front of the Old Lock Up once known many years ago as Wrights Jetty.  Ben's friend was trainer Basil Jarvis who he had known for years and he decided to buy a horse for Basil to train. The first horse he bought was Periosteum for £200, on the advice of Jarvis, and after accumulating some winnings from Periosteum who won him several races including the Ascot Gold Cup in late 1921, Ben Irish now had aspirations of winning the Epsom Derby and had Basil Jarvis look out for a horse for him that he thought might have the potential to be a Derby winner. Ben Irish’s journey to the Epsom Derby is continued in the “In Focus” article entitled “Sawtry, Papyrus and The Epsom Derby”.