Hi Sandra
Richard J Nicholls hailed from The Garras, Gulval, Penzance. The Garras being a tenement and adjacent farm. His father [John Cock I think] was the Captain at Ding Dong Mine.
You can see from the census Richard was off the radar for a while, he and a brother headed West to the states, to a mining district not too far from Chicago leaving Jane Armstrong alone to her own devices. I believe it was an ore mine that they worked in over there.
Richard later headed to Kimberley in the Northern Cape where he mined and lfought with Cecil Rhodes private army. He managed to buy land there "Spion" something or other, I forget [not Kop!]. There was some legal dispute with his joint investor and Richard lost the case and the land. Not long after he took a tumble down the "great hole" of Kimberley he'd help engineer; he died shortly after. The Diamond Fields Advertiser, reported, "he was attended by a goodly gathering of freemasons". RJ and brother Stephen were both members of the Charles Warren Lodge. RJ's son Walter was born out there. Jane then found her way back to Frizington with son Walter where it is alleged she became a bit of a soak and spent the supposedly nice little egg nest that RJ had put aside.
Jane is buried in St Paul's churchyard just down from the road from the Griffin. Some years back I visited putting flowers on her grave. I never really understood her past, I know she was friendly with either the Cammells or the Lairds of the shipbuilding dynasty. I know this because when Walter was gassed during WW1, the baron sent a coach and horses to collect him from the docks.
Jane is my Great-Grandmother.
Best wishes
Jim A Nicholls