This post, along with a photo of the gravestone at Roche, was made by Adrian Wilson 4 May 2023 to the Cornish Ancestors Facebook page:

For those of us who compile their family’s tree, tragic deaths, particularly those of infants, are not unusual but the details on a headstone at Roche parish church, which I have posted a photo of, are very harrowing for it records the deaths of four young children in the same family in a period of only 6 days.

“Erected to the memory of four children two sons two daughters of James and Grace Pedlar of Bojea in the parish of St. Austell who died within 6 days of Scarlatina”

(Dinah’s age in years is very difficult to read due to weathering but the 1841 census records her as aged 3)

Scarlatina, or Scarlet Fever, was an infectious disease with an accompanying red rash which before the days of antibiotics could be fatal.

The mention of Bojea, a hamlet on the St. Austell to Bodmin road a few miles north of St. Austell, might make you wonder why the children were buried at Roche.

With a little bit of good old fashioned family history research I looked at the family and can explain

Their father James Pedlar had been baptised at Roche parish church on the 24th February 1807, the son of Joseph Pedlar, born 1772 in the adjacent parish of Withiel and Dinah Jane Varcoe from Tywardreath, near Par, where Joseph married her on 7th September 1797.

The couple settled in Roche and James was one of 14 children born in Roche to Joseph & Dinah (one named Joseph died in 1819 and the next male child was also named Joseph)

On the 28th November 1833 James Pedlar married Grace Webber Morrish at St. Stephen in Brannel church, a few miles south of Roche. Grace had been baptised at St. Stephen in Brannel on 16th October 1802 the daughter of Edward Morrish and Jane Truscott.

James Pedlar must have taken the opportunity to farm at Bojea because the 1841 census records them there poignantly with the 4 children recorded on the headstone, Fanny aged 6, George 4, Dinah 3 and Caleb aged one

He is described as a “Yeoman”, a Yeoman was a land owning farmer, almost I suppose a “gentleman farmer”

James’s parents were still alive and living in Roche when the tragedies occurred so obviously felt the suffering as did Grace’s family I’m sure. James, a blacksmith and his wife, Dinah were living at Broad Lane, on the road to Tremodrett at the eastern edge of Roche village, two properties away from William Cock who was one of the pioneers of China Clay working on the north side of Hensbarrow and a distant relative of mine.

So what happened to James and Dinah, how did they cope? Despite the devastating loss of their whole family James & Grace rebuilt their family and their lives having the following children: Caleb George born 1844, Joshua Henry 1846, William James 1847, and Fanny Jane born 1850 (dates are approximate from the 1851 census)

In that census of 1851 the family were living at Bojea with James still farming, he was aged 44, Grace 48 and the children were Caleb George 7, Joshua 5, William 3 and Fanny 5 months old.

But unbelievably tragedy struck the family again when, Joshua, William and Fanny all died later that year from Scarlet Fever within 7 days of each other and were buried at Roche.

William James Pedlar was buried on 16th December 1851, Joshua Henry on the 18th December and Fanny Jane was buried 5 days later on December 23rd, tragically 7 out of 8 children lost to Scarlet Fever in one family.

Ten years later in 1861 James was recorded as farming 110 acres and employing 1 boy and 4 men at Bojea. There were 4 live-in servants and Grace’s widowed brother Samuel Morrish, so quite a substantial household. Their only surviving child, Caleb George was 18 years old.

1871 sees the last mention of James and Dinah in the census returns, they are still farming at Bojea and son Caleb, aged 28, his occupation given as a surveyor, would be married a few days after the 2nd April census date when he married Mary Ann Elizabeth Carveth at Mevagissey on the 11thof April.

Grace Webber Pedlar died very shortly after the 1871 census aged 68 and her husband, James, passed away in 1878 aged 72

Caleb George Pedlar later emigrated to Canada in 1891 after the 1891 census (where he is recorded as a farmer and butcher at Mevagissey) with his wife and 5 children where he died in 1919.