Sir – I was intrigued by the mystery object in the Craven Herald (Dales Life, September 12) as I have one that is very similar. Mine is made of blue glass and has the inscription “Angelina Rogers, Greenwich 1854” and the sailing ship illustrated is the “Lyra”.

The rolling pin was passed on to me through my family and was originally given to Angelina, the sister of my great grandmother, by her father Cpt James Rogers. This was probably to mark Angelina’s birth in 1851 or her christening. Another rolling pin was given to Angelina’s sister Victoria, who was born in 1854, and this now belongs to my sister in Chesterfield.

We don’t know anything about the sailing ship “Lyra” but we know a lot about Angelina and her family.

Angelina Rogers, her seven sisters and two brothers, were born near Great Yarmouth, where their mother’s family lived. Their father, Master Mariner James Rogers, came from a sea-faring family in Kent and sailed on cargo ships in the mid 1800s transporting coal from the industrial towns of the North East to London. He would have docked at Great Yarmouth and this is how he would have met his future wife Charlotte. Around 1864 the Rogers family moved from Norfolk to Greenwich. Master Mariner James Rogers used to set sail from there on board the schooner “The Goddess” on his voyages to the north.

By 1881 Angelina Rogers, her widowed father and her sisters, had moved north where they settled.

Angelina died in Sunderland four years later aged only 33. Old Captain Rogers, who was born in 1813, lived on to be 78.

Angelina Rogers never married but her sister, Ann Elizabeth, met and married a sea-faring friend of their father’s – James Henry Dossett – before the family moved north. Ann Elizabeth took ownership of the schooner “The Goddess” on which her father had sailed, and her husband became its captain.

This branch of the family settled in Seaham Harbour with their ten children – one of them to become my grandmother (Matilda) and another, Angelina, who was given her name in memory of her aunt who had died just before she was born. My branch of the family later moved to Sunderland, where I was brought up. I moved to Skipton – with the rolling pin – ten years ago. I still support Sunderland football team.

It would be interesting to know more about the Craven Museum’s rolling pin and whether it had a similar history to mine.

And if anyone can tell me more about the “Lyra”, the sailing ship engraved on mine, I’d love to know.

I have attached a photo of my rolling pin and of my grandfather Cpt James Henry Dossett, who sailed with Angelina’s father. We have no photos of Angelina herself.

Phil Witten, Skipton