Great-grandmother Eliza Jane Pearce, circa 1908.

There is pocket containing notes and keepsakes at the back of the bible that once belonged to my great-grandfather James Pearce. I have kept them as they were—letters and photographs treasured by my mother and grandmother. And most surprising, a tattered grave receipt for Eliza Jane Pearce dated 1894, Barrow-in-Furness cemetery. My great-grandmother Eliza-Jane was beloved of my mother and the subject of many conversations, but I knew for certain that she died in Durban, South Africa, and at quite a great age.

So, who was this Eliza Jane who died in England in the nineteenth century?
It took much sleuthing to discover that she was the elder sister of Mabel Roach, the maternal grandmother who lived with us for the last 13 years of her life. This Eliza Jane had never been mentioned. I can only think it was a secret that granny had kept from her own daughter and grandchildren. Why?

It seems that on the Monday July 30, 1894, my great-grandmother Eliza Jane Pearce was out walking with five-year-old daughter (also Eliza Jane) when they came across an unguarded railway crossing. According to the local newspaper, the pair were “going over the metals and before they could cross, the train came up and the child was struck with one of the buffers and knocked several yards.” The unconscious child was carried into a nearby house and then conveyed to Barrow hospital where she later died.

The crossing remains unguarded. Photograph, Rod White, February 2025.

The accident was shocking enough to have mention in at least three different local and regional newspapers. All the articles incorrectly noted that the child was two years and eight months old. This was the exact age of my grandmother and makes me wonder if she was also present on this traumatic occasion.

Whether or not that was the case, the violent death of a sibling would have reverberated through Mabel’s childhood. Presumably the Pearce family received comfort from the church and the mining community in Roose village, but for a sensitive child this could not have been enough. And the fact that it was never discussed adds to my conviction that this event profoundly shaped my grandmother’s nervous and depressive disposition.

Eliza Jane’s gravestone in Barrow-in-Furness cemetery. Photograph Rod White, Furness, Stories behind the stones.

Declining fortunes

By the time of Eliza Jane’s death, Roose families were starting to leave Lancashire for the new gold mines in South Africa. The success of Barrow’s Stank mine had been short-lived.  The six pits were prone to flooding and difficult to mine, and iron yields were dwindling. The miners’ working hours became more irregular.  By 1899 there were only two working shafts, and the company began to sell off the cottages. Within two years three quarters of the cottages were sold and the rest rented out for four shillings a week.

Remains of Stank mine structures. Photograph Christina Howker Raven, 2009.

However, the 1901 census showed that both James Pearce and his father Henry were still employed by the mine, and were living in their original houses in Roose village.

By the end of the year Stank had closed. A handful of senior men were given drilling jobs in the Vickers ship-building yard. Barrow News paid tribute to “a hardy class of men” who done their duty manfully, and hoped they would keep their houses.

Barrow infant school, circa 1897. Grandmother Mabel Roach, front row, fourth from the left (my guess).

Perhaps James was one of these men and was able to continue to support his family, but within a few years they had decided to join the Cornish mining community of the Witwatersrand.
In 1908 James, Eliza and their teenaged daughters Rose and Mabel ,boarded the mail ship Saxon (steerage class) to pursue a new life in South Africa.

References
*Trescatheric, Bryn. Roose – a Cornish village in Furness,1983, No3 Local History monograph
*Schwartz, Sharon. Networks of Metalliferous Mining Migration in the Nineteenth Century Transatlantic World: The Cornish and Irish – a Comparative Study, 2008. Download here.

Thanks to Rod White who shared his photograph of Eliza-Jane’s gravestone, and went out especially to photograph the site of the accident. Thanks also to Christina Howker Raven for permission to use her photographs of Stank ruins.