I'm still working on this post...
Entry number: 473 Date of death: August 3 1915 at Rose Cottage, Gilcrux
Name: Elizabeth Barton Gender: Female Age: 75 years
Status: Widow of Thomas Barton, Coal Miner
Cause of death: Myocardial Degeneration, Senile Decay, Certified by W.P. Briggs R.C.P.
Informant: Thomas Barton [Son] Gilcrux Registration date: August 4 1915
Registrar: W.J. Wilson
Elizabeth lived to seventy-five, and had been widowed from Thomas Barton by 1915. She remained in Gilcrux throughout her life, living at Rose Cottage, which was once a vicarage. The transition from vicarage to smallholding to family home represents changing economic and social patterns in rural England. It's common for church properties to have been sold off during financial difficulties, but I haven't found the church records and land registry documents to back this research up yet.
Elizabeth's death from heart issues and "senile decay" (likely what we would now call age-related dementia) represents a more natural end than many in her family experienced. She witnessed such changes in her lifetime (1839-1915) - from the Victorian era through the Edwardian period and into the First World War.
As John Storey's maternal grandmother, Elizabeth forms an important link in our Gilcrux research. She lived through the deaths of her mother, father, and at least three siblings, married into another mining family and maintained the family presence in Gilcrux into the 20th century.
Here's Elizabeth's probate record.
Name: Elizabeth Barton of Gilcrux, Cumberland, widow
Death date: August 2 1915 (matching her death certificate)
Probate date: November 9 1915 (granted at Carlisle)
Executor: William Monkhouse Barton [son] coal miner
Estate value: £885 18s. 2d