A wet day in Market Jew Street, Penzance, 1890 We have reached the final registration district (RD) in this tour of Cornwall’s nineteenth century districts and their migration patterns. Penzance was Cornwall’s most westerly RD but had a somewhat more diverse economic structure in the 1800s than its immediate neighbours. Although there were miners, particularly … Continue reading Penzance: end of the line
Camborne-Redruth: Cornwall’s Central Emigration District
The Redruth RD of the nineteenth century included within its bounds the central mining district. Named such because of its geographical centrality in the emerging eighteenth century industrial region of west Cornwall, the central mining district was also the most prolific producer of tin and copper ore from the early 1700s onwards. Fittingly, after the … Continue reading Camborne-Redruth: Cornwall’s Central Emigration District
Helston: quaint old Cornish town?
In the centuries before the 1600s Helston was one of the two most important market towns west of Truro, the other being Penryn. Falmouth and Penzance were not on the map until the 1500s while Camborne and Redruth were just small churchtowns indistinguishable from the scores of others scattered over the inhospitable and lightly populated … Continue reading Helston: quaint old Cornish town?
Falmouth: port and people
Falmouth was, and is, different, often cited as the atypical Cornish town. More than any other place in Cornwall, Falmouth’s horizons seem to look outwards rather than inwards. It emerged late, a new town of the seventeenth century nestling on the sheltered western side of the Fal estuary and quickly elbowing aside its older medieval … Continue reading Falmouth: port and people
Truro: Cornwall’s ‘county’ town
Truro is now Cornwall’s premier town, leading the way in the transformation of Cornwall into a ‘home county’ by the sea. Its residents might prefer to call it a city though, courtesy of the cathedral built there in the 1880s after an Anglican diocese was restored to Cornwall. A population of just under 19,000 in … Continue reading Truro: Cornwall’s ‘county’ town
St Austell: the clay effect
In the early 1800s St Austell differed little from the other small market towns typical of east Cornwall. Its fortunes were however about to be transformed by the expansion of copper mines to its east and then clay works in the hills to the north. Nonetheless, the population of the urban district of St Austell … Continue reading St Austell: the clay effect
St Columb: life before Newquay
Children born in the St Columb Registration District (RD) around 1850 grew up at a time when Newquay was a small fishing and trading village. Newquay’s population was still under 3,000 as late as 1901. It then grew rapidly in the first half of the twentieth century to overshadow the market town of St Columb … Continue reading St Columb: life before Newquay
Bodmin: from stay at homes to population boom
In 1961, the population of the market town of Bodmin was just over 6,000. The previous half-century had only seen a small increase of less than 1,000 on its 1901 population of 5,300. Nonetheless, it was larger than its east Cornish rivals at Launceston and Liskeard. But this was not enough. Local politicians were seduced … Continue reading Bodmin: from stay at homes to population boom
Liskeard: Just passing through?
Let’s return to the Cornish Victorian Lives database. Liskeard Registration District (RD) was large in terms of area and, relative to the other eastern RDs, population. Like the Calstock/Callington sub-district that was reviewed in the previous post and unlike the RDs to its north and east, it had been more than touched by mining operations. … Continue reading Liskeard: Just passing through?
State of the nation: religion
Easter may not be the most appropriate time to mention this. However, we are now living, for the first time in around 1,300 years, in a Cornwall where Christians find themselves in a minority. In the 2021 census Christians in Cornwall were outnumbered (just) by those claiming no religious beliefs. While the proportions are still … Continue reading State of the nation: religion
Cornish studies resources 