Theses plates were part of a set of Devonshire mottoware that graced my childhood home for as long as I can remember. I knew they had belonged to my grandmother, but it was only recently, through my family history research, that I understood their significance.

The maternal grandparents of my grandmother Mabel Roach, lived in the mediaeval Devonshire village of South Tawton on the edge of Dartmoor. Jessie Anne Cottle (b1846) had been born there and at the age of 20 years married Richard Webber, a Cornish miner nine years her senior. Together they had five children—the second eldest, Eliza Jane (born 1869), was my great grandmother.

Mabel Roach was a dour lady of few words, but she clearly treasured these plates as a reminder of her beloved Devonshire mother and grandmother.  The Devonshire connection also explains one of her more enjoyable habits. She seldom left the house, but every pension payday she would step out and return from the bakery with what she described as a Devonshire cream cake. (It was delicious by the way, a sponge cake filled with cream and topped with a disc of chocolate).

Church House with the church behind.Built in the 15th century and used ever since.
South Tawton, 2020.Photo Lesley Lawson

Miners on the move

1871 records show that Richard Webber was working in Ramsley Mine, near South Tawton. The surnames of many fellow miners indicated Cornish origins, and it is likely they had moved as a group when copper mining in Cornwall began to decline.

The 1866 crash of Cornish copper mining had multiple causes—declining yields meant ever-deeper mines, and the discovery of rich seams of ore in the “new world” meant declining profits.  This resulted in mass emigration of Cornish miners to the Americas, Australia and South Africa. But many, like Richard and his friends, chose to move to the next county where mining jobs were still available.

This was not to last and as jobs in the Devon mine were threatened, Richard, Jessie and their children moved again. This time to Barrow-in-Furness, around 500 miles to the north, where the newly opened iron mines offered more secure labour. It was a long journey, but not as daunting as crossing the ocean.

Cornish miners, late 19th centure, Photo Wellcome Collection

Meanwhile the Pearces…

In the previous post we left my great-great-grandfather Henry Pearce (b 1831) in Perranuthnoe, Cornwall.  Like his father and brothers before him, Henry had been a miner from a very young age. We can’t know exactly, but the census suggests that all the Pearce boys went underground when they were around 13 years of age. The girls also went out to work at the same age, as needleworkers and domestics.

Henry married the girl next door, Mary James, also the child of a mining family. The couple had eight children: four boys and four girls. The middle child was my great-grandfather James (b 1863). In 1871 this full household was complemented by Mary’s father, who had been blinded in a (mining?) accident.

But the pattern of life, established over generations, was to change. As the copper crash bit deeper and jobs were threatened, Henry and Mary decided to take their family north. Henry found a work in the nearby iron mine and a house in Roose village, Barrow-in-Furness. There they would meet the Webbers and the lives of the two families would change forever.

Sitting still or venturing forth?

After my mother’s death in 1992, the Devonshire mottoware was distributed among my siblings and the plates made their way across the ocean to Sydney, where they felt at home on my sister’s bathroom wall. She was amused by the contradictory homilies—exhortations to both sit still and row out to meet the ship, and wondered what impact this may have had had on our emotional development. Certainly, they represent the twin forces of our family history—the dominant working class culture of “knowing your place” vs the enterprising journeys of my ancestors to search for a better life.

Reconstructing a family history without documentation or living witness is fraught with pitfalls and peppered with questions. Had the crockery been transported from Devon to Lancashire, to our home in Durban, South Africa? Or was it bought at a local junk shop as a fond reminder? In any case they are a powerful symbol of my family’s migratory past.

And as for the cream cake—on my first trip to Devon I assiduously sought one out, only to be met with blank stares. Sadly, I later discovered the cake was a South African invention.