Michael forwarded me a reply he received from the Local History Librarian at Poole History Centre in Dorset:
" A brief Internet search shows that Roma
White is the pen name of an author called Blanche Oram, later Mrs Winder.
Ancestry shows she was born about 1866, she was from London, and the 1911
census shows her living in Gastang (Lancashire). This link should give you an
idea of what she has written:http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/1171191.Blanche_Winder
The fisherman named in the poem you mentioned, Jacob Matthews,
was a real person. Ancestry database gives us a lot of personal information
about him, born about 1882-4, married in 1905 or 1906, by 1911 he had 2
children, lived in Taylors Buildings near the Quay in Poole, his occupation being a fisherman. We have ‘family file’ of information for the Matthews as they are an
old Poole family."
Thank you Michael and thank you to the Poole History Centre. My paternal Grandparents lived in a house in Broadstone overlooking Poole Harbour.
I have spent some considerable time today trying to find out more but I have again drawn a blank. I will let you know as soon as I find anything more.
