Sarah Roskelly
Cornish Cooking
Sarah Roskelly[1] was born at Dobwalls (at that time known as Dubwalls[2]), Cornwall on 1 January 1867[3]. She was the penultimate of six daughters born to John Roskelly and Ellen Connor, who also had one son. In 1871 the census[4] records them as being at Five Lanes in Liskeard parish (I believe Five Lanes is now part of Dobwalls).
Sarah’s father was killed in a gunpowder explosion in 1876 and by 1881 she was employed as a general servant to farmer Thomas Haley and his wife, Ann, at Vawden, Duloe[5].
She married Thomas Henry James Bawden at the parish church in St Veep on 3 February 1891[6]. Thereafter she followed Thomas to his various postings as a coast guard before they settled in Bournemouth.
Sarah died at Fairmile House, Christchurch, Dorset on 18 Jun 1944[7].
My uncle, Walter Harry Bawden, told me that in her younger days she was cook to a wealthy family and he recalled her telling him that on one occasion she was summonsed to the dining room to be shown a dead caterpillar on the cauliflower. She said it served them right for asking for the vegetable to be cooked whole[8].
Both Harry and my father recalled Sarah’s culinary expertise and my father particularly had fond memories of her excellent Cornish pasties[9]. He also remembered that in later life she was bald and wore a wig. He did not know the cause of this condition[10].
[1] The
surname is written Rosekelley on Sarah’s birth certificate, is Roskilly in the
1871 census, but is consistently Roskelly in records thereafter.
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