Eliza James

Eliza James (30 September 1855 – 26 September 1927) was an English watercress grower and entrepreneur, known as the Watercress Queen of Covent Garden. Her watercress business was the largest watercress company of the time in Europe.

Life She was born Eliza Currall, in Birmingham, England, on 30 September 1855. She began selling watercress to help support her family following the suicide of her father. At the age of 16, she was under detention as a female juvenile offender at the Warwickshire Reformatory for Girls in Coventry, which taught offenders a trade. Around 1877, she moved to London.

Watercress business

Because of her success as an entrepreneur and grower, she was known as the Watercress Queen. She was a successful businesswoman in a male-dominated environment, and in 1908 was trading in her own right as a saleswoman of watercress and salad. She diversified her trade, and began supplying, in addition to markets, restaurants, hotels and shops, and gained an almost monopoly of London's watercress market.

She founded her company James & Son and from 1908 invested in watercress beds in Hampshire and Surrey, in Hurstbourne Priors and St Mary Bourne on the Bourne rivulet. Despite her success as a businesswoman, James continued to work on her stall at Covent Garden Market, opening each morning having arrived on her son-in-law's watercress cart. where her coffin was laid with a large wreath of watercress.

By the end of her life, James was supplying London's restaurant trade, selling 50 tonnes of watercress a week. The fields of watercress beds she created in Hampshire are still used for watercress production, and are now owned by Vitacress Salads.