Early life Eliza was born on 8 October 1810 in
London to
John Rolls, a member of the renowned
Rolls family of
The Hendre and
Justice of the Peace for Monmouthshire; and Martha Barnet, only daughter and heiress of Jacob Barnet, a businessman. She was the youngest of five with two brothers,
John E. W. and
Alexander, and two sisters, Martha Sarah and Jessy. Her grandnephew,
Charles Stewart Rolls, a motoring and aviation pioneer co-founded the
Rolls-Royce car manufacturing firm. Described as a family of "earnest evangelicals", Eliza and her siblings were baptized in the
Anglican Protestant tradition, the faith her family ancestry upheld. Despite her Protestant upbringing, she was deeply impressed by the exemplary service of the Catholic Church towards the poor and heard of many Catholic saints during her childhood education in France.
Marriage and Conversion On 12 July 1830, Eliza married John Francis Vaughan, eldest son of William Vaughan of
Courtfield. • Mary Elizabeth Barbara,
O.S.A. (1845–1884) as
Mother Clare Magdalen, Augustinian nun of
Saint Augustine's Priory, Newton Abbot, Devon; •
Bernard John,
S.J. (1847–1922), Jesuit priest and missionary described as "The Modern
Savonarola"; • Reginald Aloysius (1849–1919), married Judith Aloysia Shanahan, an Irish Catholic in Australia; and • Margaret Mary (1850–1899), desired to be a nun but ill health prevented her hence lived at home and in her final years in a convent; Eliza taught her children to combine spiritual and religious duties with fun and joy in a way that was very natural to them. Because of her, devotions and daily Masses in the family chapel were just as much as part of her children's everyday life as playing, riding horses, amateur theater, and music. Her charitable works of visiting the sick and helping the needy encouraged as well her children to be generous and make sacrifices such as giving away their toys or savings. She often told them the lives of the saints. She began her steadfast prayer for
vocations after reading about St.
Stephen Harding, one of the founders of the
Cistercian Order, in
The Lives of the Saints written by
John Henry Newman, and found great inspiration, saying: At some point, Eliza started praying to the mothers of saints, asking their intercessions that some of her children would be called to serve God and the Church. Her prayers were eventually answered having six priests: two priests in religious orders, one diocesan priest, one bishop, one archbishop and one cardinal; and four nuns in religious orders in the family.
Death Eliza died on 24 January 1853, at the age of 42, shortly after giving birth to her 14th child. She was interred in the Courtfield House Chapelyard. In a letter, John Francis expressed his belief that divine providence brought Eliza to him, saying: ==Beatification==