If you’re attempting to use past distributions of surnames to pinpoint their origin, names from places (for example Trevithick or Penrose) clearly hold out the best chance of success. Nevertheless, sometimes the early pattern of nicknames or even surnames from first names can provide clues as to where that surname may have first arisen in a particular district or region.
For instance Moyle seems to have multiplied in mid-Cornwall on both sides of the Camel estuary, an interesting distribution given the claim that it was a nickname from the Cornish language word for bald.
The early distribution of another nickname – Knight – which we are told was adopted for someone acting as or exhibiting the characteristics of a knight, point to a clear origin in the far south east of Cornwall. Given its ramification by the 1500s, it was probably a name that had emerged as a surname a couple of centuries earlier.
In the meantime, here’s some more surnames to take us up to number 60 in our list of the surnames of Cornwall. You can check out the early maps of these here.
| rank | surname | type | number of households |
| 52 | Moyle | nickname | 199 |
| =54 | Berriman/Berryman | landscape/occupational name | 197 |
| =54 | George | personal name | 197 |
| =54 | Knight | nickname | 197 |
| 56 | Peter/s | personal name | 196 |
| 57 | Osborn/e | personal name | 194 |
| 58 | Hancock | personal name | 190 |
| 59 | Hambly | personal name | 188 |
| 60 | Vivian | personal name | 187 |
Further details of most of these names can be found in my The Surnames of Cornwall.
Cornish studies resources 
Bernard
We have the name Angwin in our family so years ago I did a limited one-name study on it. At first I translated it word for word and assumed it meant “The White” or “The Fair” or “The Blond”. (Think of Guinevere in the King Arthur stories, and Angwin, King of Ireland in the Lancelot stories).
The earliest Angwin mentions I found were in Cornwall in the St Just in Penwith area, essentially located in the Cot valley (Porth Nanven) but also in other valleys between Portheras and Tol Pedn Penwith where they frequently owned or managed tin stamps, mills, buddles and concentrators on the various streams.
When I retired and moved to Brittany a neighbour said we would not use Angwin here as Gwin is Breton for wine but we do have the word Anguen which is a name for a miller as he is always covered in white flour. (Guen is Breton for white).
An alternative possibility is the name could be from a place name as old documents show Porth Angwin to be the first sandy beach south of the Cot Valley. This beach could be part of the great sandy beach running down to Sennen Cove and shown on modern maps as Whitsand Bay.
I also came one examples of one Angwin family around the 1700s changing their name to White, presumably to sound more modern. This is like some of the Andrewarthas at Gwithian changing their name to Upton (note Upton Towans, a name that still seems odd to many local people who generally call the area Dynamite Corner after the factories there in the early 1900s)
Alan Trevarthen
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Thanks for that Alan. I’d always assumed that Angwin was a fairly straightforward surname – the equivalent of English White – in the same way that Annear was Long. Clearly the family you cite in the 1700s also assumed that. But the placename raises the interesting possibility the surname came from a place rather than the other way around, That would depend on the earliest attestation of the placename. But according to Gover the first record was quite late – around 1703 and it was then spelt Porth Anwen.
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Thanks for that Alan. I’d always assumed that Angwin was a fairly straightforward surname – the equivalent of English White – in the same way that Annear was Long. Clearly the family you cite in the 1700s also assumed that. But the placename raises the interesting possibility the surname came from a place rather than the other way around, That would depend on the earliest attestation of the placename. But according to Gover the first record was quite late – around 1703 and it was then spelt Porth Anwen.
Thanks for replying Bernard.
Further to my email mentioning that Anguen is a Breton nick-name for a miller (covered in white flour) (as are Angwenn, and Le Guen), and that the Angwins of St Just operated tin mills (perhaps also flour mills) on the West Penwith streams at Porthnanven (St Just), Chyrose (Portheras), Nanjulian (in Mill Bay) etc. in the 1600s…
I did not know about the 1703 spelling by Gover but that fits — Wenn, Gwenn, Widden, Gwin…interchangable in essence?
Craig Weatherhill also has a line or two on this (Cornish Place Names and Language p37) although he also mentions a 14th century spelling as Porthangwin, and he says the local pronounciation is p’NAN-vel
The earliest Angwin I know of who has been documented extensively is Harry Angwyne of St Just born about 1489, and a 76 year old witness in a “Triall of Wrack” at Penzance in Feb 1565. His account is written up by Peter Pool in the 1959 edition of the JRIC. It was a court battle over who has the right to wreckstuff that washes up on the shore around West Penwith
Years ago I copied a number of Angwin Wills dated 1625 to 1730 that were in the Cornwall records office. These wills showed them to be people of some property owning substance, and at least one or two are described as gentlemen.
In the 1970s I attended an exhibition by the St Just Old Cornwall society on St Just history and saw some old estate maps that showed an Angwin, described as a gentleman, holding the buildings and fields around the big bend in the Bosorne Road from St Just down to Porth Nanven and thus holding some of the Cot Valley. In Bosorne, 300 years on Penwith Farms, Penzance Local History Group 1994 is a mention that in 1636 when Bosorne was divided Benjamin Angwin got 16 acres of it. This does not sound much for a gentleman but maybe he already held other land nearby in the Cot valley. Carlene Harry has done an excellent write up on Richard Angwin and the Angwin family 1600 to 1675 in the Penwith Local History Group 1998 series “West Penwith at the time of Charles II.”
There is even a Wheal Widden section on Bosorne Mine
The Tinners muster lists etc — The 1569 Muster list mentions only one male Angwin/Angwyn in the whole of Cornwall in the age range 6-60 and he was in St Just.
The first Angwin I can see in the St Just marriages (a list which starts in 1599) is Harry Angwyn junior in 1605 . There was also a Mary Blanch married in 1609 (Was she an Angwin who Frenchified her name as the language changed?)
I have never seen Porth Angwin marked on any map and had reckoned it must be
A- Part of, or all of, the great sandy beach called Whitesand Bay. All of is surely too big to be named after a person. Far more likely to be a descriptive name.
B- An alternative name for Porthnanven itself, or an alternative pronounciation of the same place (You well know how the old St Just accent on a Saturday night in the Commercial before the singing started could vary from speaker to speaker.)
Having done Breton classes for 10 years and having a particular interest in Breton place names and how their spellings vary I can easily imagine that Porth Nanven and Porth Angwin might be the same place.
Porth, Porz, Port, Por must be an access, cove, landing place or courtyard
Nan presumably is the valley (Nanven is this valley that leads to Porth Nanven)
Ven or Wenn could be fair, beautiful or white
Fair or beautiful is obvious today, it is a strikingly beautiful place, magic. And the ranks of rounded white granite boulders on the rocky beach shows as a white band from the sea.
In the valley itself white is less obvious today with the stream running clear.
However that stream runs down from Leswidden china clay pit.
Cookworthy didn’t discover China Clay in Cornwall until 1740 on Tregonning Hill but it had been there for millions of years before him or his horse. Before Cookworthy recognised it the clay matrix was called “gook” and was probably mined for refractory use on tin smelters or for local pottery.
The earliest records I have seen for tin production at Balleswidden mine is 1715 but much of its tin occurred as a stockwork in numerous parallel Greisen veins each separated from the next by white decomposed granite. This can be seen today in the nearby Lower Bostraze clay pit. These stockworks in Balleswidden were deep. Their width and soft nature a thousand feet below ground made the mine so dangerous. Cyril Noall (The other St Just mines) reports the biggest fall of ground ever in a Cornish mine occurred there. The backs of these stockworks outcrop at surface and were easy digging with a pick and shovel. It is inconcievable that tinners of a thousand years back didn’t dig and shammel away on the back of these lodes, keeping the cassiterite and letting the white clay and micaceous wastes wash down stream through the Cot Valley to the sea. It may be a question of solids concentration. Did the white clay slimes overcome the colour of the hematite slimes from buddling the tin ore. If so then in that white clay carrying stream there is another potential source for the name Angwin
I remember when the sea at Gwithian and the sea off Geevor was always red. I remember the Red River running red at down through Tuckingmill, Kieve Mill etc, past Reskadinnack right down to Bill Furze’s house at Godrevy beach tin works and out to the lighthouse. The river from St Austell to Pentewan used to be called the White River. It built the white sandy beaches of Crinnis (It also blocked the estuary at Par). I remember the Luxulyan river running white at Ponts Mill, before modern legislation and surfers caught up with tradition and culture and forced us to stockpile our slimes and white waste up on the moors
Alas what treasured rites we have been forced to abandon.
Photo 1
Greisen veins in the clay face at Lower Bostraze clay pit, Balleswidden, 1973
Photo 2
Washing clay at Lower Bostraze 1973
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