Lieutenant Edward (Eddie) Thomas Borlase

Royal Garrison Artillery

Born 1883, Bettwsycoed, North Wales. Died Carlisle, 29th November 1939

Son of Captain William and Rebecca Borlase  Greenside Lodge

Husband of Euphemia Burrell

Father of Josephine, Rosemary and John Malcolm Borlase

Edward T Borlase was born at Bettwsycoed in North Wales in 1883, the younger son of Captain Borlase while his father was manager of Llanwrst Mines. He was seven years old when his father arrived as Chief Agent at Greenside Mine in Glenrididng. His father was a well-paid man of some standing in the community, and in common with many others of this class, he sent his son to be educated at the prestigious school of St Bees in Cumberland.

From 1898 to 1901 Edward served his apprenticeship in various lead, coal and iron mines in the North of England, getting practical experience in mine office work and underground mining, and completed his education at the Camborne School of Mines to learn theory. In 1904/05 he assisted his father , then in 1905 when he was just twenty-two years old and working at Greenside Mine, he was invited to join the new department of Mining which had been formed in 1902 at Birmingham University. He was appointed to the post of Demonstrator in Metal Mining as a salary of £150 pa, under Professor Redmayne, an important position as he was the only other member of the academic staff in the tiny department! He had no academic qualifications, but while teaching there he was allowed, as a member of the academic staff, to write a dissertation on mineral dressing at lead mines, for which he was awarded the degree of BSc in 1907. He resigned his post in December 1908, and in 1909 he went to Spain as assistant to the manager of the Calamon Lead & Zinc Mining Company which was working a large mine in the Sierra Morena near Cordoba. In 1912 he joined the great Rio Tinto mining company as engineer in charge of one of their sections in the south of that country, becoming chief of mines and acting manager of the Huelva Copper and Sulphur Company the following year when he was just thirty years old.

After the outbreak of hostilities he joined up in 1915 and served throughout the war in France, first with the Royal Artillery and then with the Royal Garrison Artillery, leaving with the rank of Captain in 1918 (although his medal index card shows him still as a Lieutenant). After his discharge he returned to his profession as a mining engineer, briefly as an assistant to his father at Greenside Mine in 1918, then at Bilbao in northern Spain where he worked for three years as the manager of the Lucana Mining Company, then as assistant manager at the Orconera Iron Ore Co. for three more years before becoming an independent consultant. It was as Las Arenas near Bilbao that his daughter Josephine was born in 1925. He returned to Britain in July that year, and in 1926 took over the management of Greenside Mine and went to live at Greenside Lodge, where his second daughter Rosemary Corin was born in 1927 and his son John Malcolm in 1931.

Eddie was a small stout man, and his wife Euphemia was a tall slender lady, and the miner jokingly referred to them as "the long and the short of it". He lived at Greenside Lodge, and each day road up to the mine in a pony and trap, or on a horse in winter, for the road was rough. Life was pleasant for his family, for the valley was a lovely place to live in. Josephine was very fond of the horses and learned to ride on the mine ponies when they were brought out of the mine in the evenings. Eddie was altogether different in personality from his brother, a serious man and a strict disciplinarian, and he ran the mine efficiently and well.

In March 1935 Greenside Mine went into liquidation and Eddie joined the staff of the British Non-Ferrous Mining Corporation and was sent first to a Portuguese mine at Viseu for twelve months, then came back as a mine superintendent at their Halkyn mine in Wales. He lived at Northorpe near Holywell until he left the mine in 1936 or 37. After a brief sojourn in London he went to live at Grassington, where he managed simultaneously some Barytes workings on Grassington Moor and the Potts Ghyll Barytes mine at Caldbeck. Unfortunately he was by now a sick man with a developing heart complaint which put him off work for many months at one time, and finding himself unable to manage both mines he left Grassington and came to live in Carlisle. He died suddenly of a heart attack at Carlisle on 29th November 1939, after having taken his children to the pictures.

Captain William Henry Borlase was a Cornishman born at Bosorne in the village of St Just in 1851 the son of John Borlase a carpenter and his wife Sophia. He came to work at Greenside Mine in 1889 and had three children. Edward’s older brother William Henry Junior born on 21st February 1875 as St Columb and drowned in a swimming or boating accident off the coast of Pernambuco Province, Brazil in January 1933. His sister Mary Corin born in 1885 at Bettwsycoed in North Wales.

Captain William Henry Borlase died on 12th August 1933 at Sandath near Penrith and at the time was living with his daughter Mary Kidd whose husband was Joseph Charles Kidd, a Director of Kidd's Auction Co - now Penrith Farmers & Kidd who are still going strong.

Our thanks to Warren Allison for this biography of Edward.

Eddie Borlase (third from the left) Taken at Potts Gyhll Barytes Mine near Caldbeck circa 1938. Picture taken from Samuel Murphy’s book Grey Gold

Workers in Greenside Mine around 1910. The man on the left is Captain Borlase, Eddie’s father - picture from Ian Tyler’s Book Greenside A Tale of Lakeland Miners