Eliza Jevons
* 1832 Liverpool
+ 1924

x Alfred Garret Foster Barham

Extracts from a text written in 1886 by the widow of Wm. Stanley, son of Thomas and grandson of William Jevon(s) and Ann (from the archive of documents by William Stanley Jevons; see libertyfund, jevons-letters-and-journal). The text below is therefore written from vantage point of Wm. Stanley Jevons, a full cousin of Eliza Jevons.
The Jevons or Jevon family (the final s was first added by William, Stanley's grandfather) is evidently of Welsh origin, but they had been settled in Staffordshire for many generations. At Cosely in that county Timothy Jevon, the great-grandfather of Stanley, lived; and here his grandfather, William Jevon(s), was born and grew up to manhood. William Jevon(s) had but slight educational advantages, but he was endowed with a great deal of good sense, and was a man of strong affections and of much religious feeling. Having been brought up at home and employed in his father's trade of nail-making, he became assistant to a Mr. Stokes, engaged in the nail trade at Old Swinford, and it was to increase the business of Mr. Stokes that he removed to Liverpool at the end of the year 1798,

Unitarian Chapel at Park Road, Liverpool

accompanied by his wife and young family, consisting of three sons and a daughter. He had not been long in Liverpool before he was enabled, with the assistance of capital lent him by a friend, to commence business on his own account as an iron merchant. Mr. William Jevons gave to all his children the best education in his power, and when his eldest son Thomas grew up he took him into his own business, and before long made him a partner. Later on, Timothy, the youngest son, joined the firm, which was known as Jevons and Sons.
  Mr. William Jevons attended the Unitarian chapel, then situated in Benn's Garden. [The Jevons family were prominent members of the Unitarian community in Liverpool.] His second son William became a Unitarian minister, after receiving his college education at York, then the home of Manchester New College. He was an intellectual, cultivated man, but owing to a change in some of his opinions he early left the ministry. He wrote several books - one of them a small book on astronomy for the use of schools.
  [In 1837, Son Thomas Jevons] removed to No. 9 Park Hill Road, one of two new houses built from his own designs  - for Mr. Thomas Jevons took great pleasure in planning houses, and showed much skill in doing it. The other house was occupied for the first few years by his brother, Mr. William Jevons, and later by his younger brother, Mr. Timothy Jevons, and his family.
  Stanley could remember the great storm of January 1839, before he was three and a half years old. One of the chimneys of the house of his uncle, William Jevons (the reverend), was blown down, and Stanley's mother was so much alarmed that she had her children roused from their beds and carried down to the cellar for safety.
  [Stanley's grand-]father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. William Jevons, lived in a large old house close by, the garden joining Thomas's. At that time Park Hill Road was almost in the country: besides the large gardens attached to the houses there were fields and lanes close by, so that the children could have plenty of healthy out-door life. Mr. Thomas Jevons' house is still standing. (Note: statement made in the text from 1886; no old houses exist any more at 9 Park Hill road according google streetview 2014.) The gardens are all gone, and the neighbourhood is built up with a poorer class of houses, and is now part of the town.
  When Mr. Timothy Jevons came to occupy the third house instead of his brother William, Stanley had the companionship of two boys about his own age, and the cousins must have had frequent opportunities of meeting, for they had the kindest of grandparents, who permitted their garden to be the constant play place of the two families of cousins.
  In January 1848 the firm of Jevons and Sons failed. Stanley never forgot one Sunday when, instead of going to chapel as they were in the habit of doing, his grandfather William, father Thomas, and uncle Timothy were shut up all the morning together with the books of the firm.
  This misfortune made a great change in the circumstances of the three families in Park Hill Road. The houses were given up at once, and Mr. Thomas Jevons removed with his family to No. 125 Chatham Street. Mr. William Jevons, who had lost his wife in 1846, became from this time a member of his eldest son's household. He brought with him an organ, on which Stanley used to play a good deal; and he did it well enough to give much pleasure to his grandfather and father, who were both very fond of music, although unable to play any instrument themselves.