How our present and future are connected to our past, the importance of place in relationships and community support
by Linda Jenkin, Mylor Local History Group
Researching with Ancestry.com as a winter lockdown project in 2021, I discovered that Jane Rodda, born in St Erth 1670 and died in Breage in 1748, was in my family tree. Jane was the ‘Great’ William Lemon of Carclew’s mother. I have always felt at home in West Cornwall and knew I was Cornish through and through, from family stories which recounted that we were miners from West Cornwall. Are those miners in fact the ‘Great’ William Lemon?
Breage Church parish records register Jane’s marriage, the birth of her children and her death.
Jane was a midwife at the time when female mortality rates were high due to the risk of childbearing. Most midwives guarded the secrets of their profession, and many were illiterate, so little of practical value was handed down in writing. Theirs was a largely oral tradition. Midwives learned through apprenticeship from experienced, older midwives. They travelled to homes to care for mothers and their babies. Midwives were critical to their communities and often the only primary care providers.
Jane had her own children and her sons were remarkable, in particular William who went on to be a mining entrepreneur, and whose genius dramatically accelerated the Industrial Revolution in Cornwall, and tin and copper mining around the world.
I feel I have come full circle moving to Mylor and connecting to Carclew. Like Jane’s career as a midwife, I was interested in caring for people, developing my medical skills. I trained at the Royal National Institute for Laryngology and Otology at Grays Inn Road, London. Opening the first Audiology clinic at City Hospital, Infirmary Hill, I moved to Flushing from Truro and finally settled in Mylor.
Having developed an interest in family and local history, I took on the role of chairman of the Mylor Local History Group. In January 2023, I was contacted by Mike Quakenbush from Canada, who was researching his Cornish ancestry to discover we were, in all probability, nearly 300 year old cousins through Jane Rodda. We were both amazed that our historical interest in Carclew had brought us together, connecting our family. Through research held by Carclew Remains, we have discovered more of our family from across the world.
Mylor Local History Group donated a nominal sum to be used as match funding by Carclew Remains in a grant application for consolidation work on the house. This work is enabling project developments which build on the legacy of its ancestors, creating Carclew as a resource for Cornwall and the community.
Mylor Local History Group also have a Facebook page under Mylor Local History Group Cornwall.
If you have further information and research about life in Breage and midwifery around 1700, or you have family connections to Carclew, please do Contact Us.