Mary Ann Prout's Diaries
- Her Mother

Ann (Nancy) Pearce was born on 26th December, 1829 and, three months after her fifteenth birthday, her father, Thomas Pearce, died at the age of 56, and was buried in St. Agnes churchyard. Her mother, Mary Ann, was left with five surviving children, the youngest, James, not yet five.

Thomas Pearce was a cordwainer and, whether he worked as a shoemaker, saddler, or something of each, he was unlikely to have left enough money for Mary Ann to raise her family without difficulty. But rear them she did and on 9th July, 1849, Nancy, the eldest (a first-born girl had died at birth) was married to 28-year old John James Prout. She was not quite 20.

There is no photograph to record what Nancy and her family looked like on her wedding day. Although by that time Talbot Fox's experiments were progressing fast and he had produced his first photograph some six years before, it would be surprising if even word of it had reached the depths of Cornwall. But, twenty years later in the 1870s, Nancy and many of her relations 'had their likeness took' as, by then, a photographic studio was within reach of most people with a few pence to spare in the local market town.

Nancy probably wore her best dress for her wedding, unless she was lucky enough to be able to have a new one. If so, it would have been one which could be worn as 'best' in future as spending several months' wages on a dress to be worn only once would have been considered immoral, even if it had been possible. Her dress was unlikely to have been white, although white wedding dresses were becoming popular since the wedding of Queen Victoria in 1840.

We don't yet know where Nancy lived when she was first married. She may have stayed in her mother's home while John James returned overseas, leaving her behind and that could be why their first child (John Pearce Prout) was not born until eight years later, on 3rd November, 1857, when Nancy was nearly 28.

John James went to Mexico in about 1864 or 1865, taking Nancy with him, and 7-year old John Pearce and 4-year old Mary Ann as well. The family must have stayed in Mexico for six or seven years because Thomas Abraham, the youngest child, was born there in 1866 and only returned home to Cornwall when he was six years old, presumably with the rest of the family. By that time his father, John James, was 51 and Nancy 43. John Pearce, the eldest son, then about 16, remained behind in Mexico, probably in the care of his uncles.

Nancy travelled home with her money (in gold sovereigns) stitched into her corsets. Presumably there was enough to set up in the coal merchant's business in St. Agnes, and young Tom went to a boarding school in Truro for several years.

The only certain facts we know about her are in the scraps of Mary Ann's diaries. As already mentioned, her parents were not often referred to directly by Mary Ann, though the frequent entries "We are washing today" must have included her mother. That is usually the only entry on wash days, except for the state of the weather. Those of us with a memory of wash days even before the Second World War, will find that explanation enough.

It is unlikely that, in 1877, the house in Vicarage, St. Agnes, would have had an indoor water supply, and even if it did, that supply would have been of cold water only. Fetching water, often from as far as a quarter of a mile away, was part of most village women's work well into the 1900s, and the public supply was augmented by rainwater and water from streams when possible. Up to the outbreak of war in 1939, and even after, it was not unknown for several households to share one common tap or pump. Nancy's household water may well have had to be pumped, and hot water heated in cauldrons and kettles on the big, black Cornish stove.

Stoves arrived in Britain in the late 18th century. The first cast iron range was patented by Thomas Robinson in 1780, though they may not have reached Cornwall for some years. They did not become standard fitments in houses until the 1880s, by which time coal was available at a reasonable price. Before that, cooking would have been done on open wood or peat fires, with pots suspended over the flames by chains, and meat, when there was any, roasted on a spit, or in a large iron pot. Other baking was often managed on a flat iron sheet, with the big cooking pot inverted over it, although sometimes there was an oven built into the side of the fireplace. This was filled with brushwood or dry heather which was fired, and when sufficient heat had been engendered, the ashes were raked out and the food put into the hot oven with the door firmly fastened.

Nancy, cooking in the 1870s, and with access to a good supply of coal, had a range. I do know that her daughter, Mary Ann, when she moved to Brixham about 1890, some six years after her marriage, held that Devon ranges were no good and insisted on having a Cornish one installed.

Although, at the time Mary Ann was writing her 1877 diary, regular help in the house might not have been necessary, Nancy certainly had paid help sometimes, if not all the time. So, compared with many of their neighbours, the Prouts must have had a reasonable income. The girls, Mary Ann 16, and Mary Ellen a year younger, would have helped with the household duties as a matter of course, though Mary Ann does not write much about them, except to record wash days and such unusual extras as mending the parlour wallpaper. Probably, like some of her descendants, she felt she had a mind above housework.

Living in St. Agnes, a busy mining town, Nancy may not have needed to bake her own bread as by then a baker's cart probably called. Milk would have been fetched, in a jug or can, from a nearby dairy or farm, and there would have been plenty of other cooking to do for the family and the lodgers, as well as catering for unexpected guests.

Fresh food was not kept for any length of time; a larder on the coolest side of the house and perhaps a wooden 'safe' hung on a shady outside wall would probably have been the best that could be done, and a close watch was needed on things like milk or cream, especially in thundery weather. Where there was a well, ledges would be made in the side for storing butter and meat, and sometimes a jar or can could be stood in a running stream. Even during my childhood in the 1920s, milk seldom kept beyond a day in summer without 'scalding', whereas nowadays our milk is likely to be at least three days old before we get it and keeps in the refrigerator even longer.

One of the first indirect references to Nancy in her daughter's diary is indicative of her kind heart.

"Wednesday,28th February, 1877 Beautiful weather. Mr Lawry's sale this afternoon. There was a lot of people there, it was not over until eleven o'clock. They sold everything. They took out the grates and sold them. Mrs Lawry is down to Mr Dales stopping and Mr Lawry is here with us. She will not live with him any more. I think he is going to leave on Monday. I don't think I shall ever forget them."

Mr Lawry stayed nearly two weeks, possibly hoping to find somewhere else to go. He was apparently bankrupt, and perhaps his wife had had enough. Anyway, there was nothing else for it and on 12th March Mary Ann writes:

"Beautiful weather. We are washing today. Mr Lawry is gone to the Union today. He went with Mr Stribley."

The Union was the workhouse in Truro, and Stribley was the local carrier. Five days later, on 17th March, they had news of him.

"We had a letter today from Mr Lawry. He is finding it very cold."

Nancy did not wash her hands of poor Mr Lawry though. In April she went to visit him.

"Wednesday, 11th April. Mother went into Truro today. Mother and Mrs Lockett went up to the Union to see poor old Mr Lawry. He was very glad to see them. Mother said he was looking better than she expected to see him. Mother said that it was a very clean place. She saw some young women. They were all dressed in blue and white. They had white caps on. She saw some little babies."

Mr Lawry's story had a happy ending. On 9th July Mary Ann records:

"Mr Lawry is come home from the Union today. He is going to stop over to Mrs Locketts. He is looking capital."

There was a less happy ending for another neighbour:

"Tuesday, 17th July, 1877 Poor Mrs Wellington was buried this afternoon. She was put into the infirmary on Thursday and died on Saturday. There was a stoppage inside and she would have to go under an operation but she died before she went under the operation. She was a mother to Millicent. It was brought on by hard work."

• Home Page
• Family and Background
• Mary Ann's Father
• Her Home
• A Soul To Be Saved
• Her return to Cornwall and her marriage
• JBW - Leaving Europe
• Arriving in South America
• The Coast of Chile
• In Tocapilla, Chile
• Over the Andes to Bolivia
• Working the Tatasi Mine
• Working the Porco Mine
• Homeward through Argentina