A glimpse into De Kaap Valleys' early days: Lawson family of Eureka City
This family story offers a rare glimpse into the people who lived and worked in Eureka City during the Barberton gold rush.
Family history has a way of bringing the past back to life, and in the case of the Lawson family, it gives us a rare glimpse into the people who lived and worked in Eureka City during the Barberton gold rush.
Sandra Meyer, the great-great-granddaughter of Mary Ann Hart, whose second husband was Robert George Lawson, recently shared the remarkable story of her ancestors whose lives were closely tied to Barberton’s mining era.
The story begins in England in the late 1700s. Edward Hart, born in 1798 in Barby, Northamptonshire, and his wife Charlotte West of Warwickshire, raised a family of farmers. Their son, William West Hart, later emigrated to South Africa with his wife, Ruth Hall. They arrived in Durban in May 1850 aboard the ship Lady Bruce, one of many British settler families seeking a new life in the colony of Natal.
Among their children was Mary Ann Hart, born in Durban on June 6, 1857. She grew up in Clairmont, Durban, and would later become central to the Lawson family’s Barberton story.
Mary Ann married George Alexander Walsh in January 1875, and together they had two daughters. Their eldest, Katherine Mary (Carrie) Walsh, was born in 1875, but tragedy struck when their second daughter, Florence Marion, died just a day after birth in 1878. Mary Ann’s first marriage ended in divorce in 1882, a difficult and unusual step for the time. A year later, on 3 October 1883, Mary Ann married Robert George Lawson, a Scottish baker born in Corstorphine, Midlothian, in 1855.
Robert, known affectionately as “Pa Lawson,” and Mary Ann, known as “Nanny Lawson” or “Natty,” became well-known figures in Barberton’s bustling mining town of Eureka City, where Robert ran the famous Lawson’s Bakery.
Eureka City was once a thriving settlement near the Sheba Mine. Prospectors, miners, and traders all flocked there during the 1880s gold rush, and the Lawson family was part of that community. Their bakery would have served bread and baked goods to miners and their families, providing a small taste of home in what was otherwise a rough and remote town.
Mary Ann’s daughter from her first marriage, Carrie Walsh, also lived in Eureka City. She married Otto Ernst, who sadly died young and is buried in Sheba Cemetery. Carrie later married Ernest Ramsden, and their son Basil Clarence West Ramsden was born at Eureka City in 1908, making him one of the few children whose birthplace was officially registered there.
The Lawsons eventually left Eureka City as the mining settlements declined. Robert died in Johannesburg in 1930 and was buried in Brixton Cemetery, where Mary Ann joined him in 1945. Their shared grave, rediscovered and restored in 2022, stands as a quiet reminder of their pioneering lives.
Carrie Ramsden and her family also carried the Barberton connection into the future. Basil Ramsden, grandson of Mary Ann, often recalled his birthplace with pride. Though his career took him to mines across Southern Africa, the memory of Eureka City remained part of his family heritage.
Today, descendants like Sandra Meyer keep these stories alive. Through painstaking research, she has pieced together documents, photographs, and family memories that link the Hart, Walsh, Lawson, Ernst, and Ramsden families back to those first gold rush days in Barberton.
According to Sandra, the first time she visited Barberton was in 1969. She came again in 1980 and 1985 but could not go to Eureka City on either occasion. “In December 2024, I arranged a road trip from Cape Town to explore family history en-route to and back from the Kruger National Park. We collected my cousin and her husband in Edenvale and our daughter flew up from Cape Town and joined us. We had a wonderful stay at Fountain Baths Guest Cottages in Barberton and we did a fabulous and fun 4 x 4 trip to Eureka City and Sheba Cemetery with Wynand Engelbrecht of Dusty Tracks. It was the best adventure ever and highly recommended!”
Eureka City may now lie in ruins, hidden in the mountains above Barberton, but thanks to families like the Lawsons and their descendants, its history remains alive. Their story adds a deeply human layer to the region’s heritage, reminding us that beyond the gold, it was families, bakers, miners, and children who gave life to Barberton’s early days.
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