Introduction

Rosa Annie Peach came from an impoverished and dysfunctional family. As a teenager, she and her younger sister, Bessie, were taken in by their father’s aunt, Ann Read of Partway House, Hardington. That intervention was crucial in helping them pursue stable and fulfilling lives.

Childhood

Rosa Annie Peach was born on 13 November 1876 at Crewkerne, the fourth of six children born to George and Susan Peach. Her father was a miller at Haymore Mill, and her mother was the daughter of John and Jane Swaffield.

George struggled in business and probably in life generally, possibly due to past trauma. When he was about 27, he was among the first to discover his father’s body hanging in a barn.[1]

After occupying large farms at Powerstock and Cattistock, he moved to Haymore Mill, Crewkerne, and then Heifer Mill, Broadwindsor, before becoming a farm labourer at Mosterton by about 1879. Despite inheriting the interest on two mortgages of £200 from his mother in 1879, he never regained his previous status.[2]

In the 1880s, the family hit a crisis, which began after George attempted to make a fresh start in Wiltshire, working as a gardener in the village of Codford St Mary, Wiltshire. This crisis affected the whole family, but was especially hard on the three daughters—Emily, Rosa, and Bessie. While Emily was admitted to St Michael’s Home, Salisbury, a shelter and training home for girls “in difficulty or danger,” Rosa and Bessie went to live with their father’s aunt, Ann Read, at Hardington. Meanwhile, George and Susan moved to Muchelney, where George worked as a groom, and their three sons worked as labourers on farms. In the early 1890s, the eldest son, Joseph, moved from Stockton, Wiltshire, to Monmouthshire, where he died in 1893 at the age of 23.

Bessie eventually rejoined her parents, possibly after Ann Read’s death in 1897, but Rosa forged a new life in Taunton.

Move to Taunton

By March 1901, Rosa was a general domestic servant employed in the home of a young Roman Catholic widow at 19 The Crescent, Taunton. She worked there with her sister, Emily, who had married a postman named Archibald Pring in 1898. However, their marriage soon fell apart, and the 1901 census recorded her as single, while her husband lived elsewhere in the town. It is possible that Archibald was mentally unstable, as he was admitted to an asylum in 1909, where he died the following year.

Marriage

Through Archibald, Rosa may have met another postman named John Henry Jones. The couple married at Taunton St Mary Church on 7 January 1902. Bessie was a witness to her marriage.

Married life

John and Rosa settled at Taunton, living at 4 Holway Hill, which remained their home for the rest of their lives. Their daughter, Hilda Ellen, was born on 8 September 1903, and their son Cyril, was born on 20 August 1905.

When Bessie’s husband fell ill with tuberculosis in 1916, Rosa went to Weymouth to help look after him, and she registered his death.[3]

Inheritances

The following year, Rosa’s father died on 13 December 1917 at the age of 72. His estate was valued at £301 15s 9d, which he divided equally among his five children, leaving nothing to Susan.^[4]

After Susan’s death in 1925, Rosa inherited an equal share of Ann Read’s bequest of £300 along with her four surviving siblings.[5]

Death

John died intestate on 29 January 1937, at the age of 63, leaving an estate valued at £289 7s 2d. Rosa died on 16 July 1964, at the age of 87, leaving an estate valued at £2,842.

Children

Rosa and her husband had one son and one daughter.

References

[1] Western Daily Press, 18 April 1878, p.3.

[2] The will of Elizabeth Peach, dated 29 January 1879, proved at Blandford on 16 June 1879.

[3] Death certificate of George Eves.

[4] The will of George Peach, dated 8 August 1902, proved in London on 15 January 1918.

[5] The will of Ann Read, dated 14 June 1889, proved at Taunton on 27 October 1897. In 1925, all of Rosa’s siblings were alive except Joseph George, who died in 1893.