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
Author: bwdeacon
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
Speculations on the swift: celebrating Charles Morton
At this time of the year, bird-watchers will begin to feel a keen sense of anticipation as they await the first sign of migrant birds returning to our skies. Particularly fascinating are the swifts, those black birds with sickle-shaped wings who swoop and swerve above our heads, their distinctive cries alerting us to their presence … Continue reading Speculations on the swift: celebrating Charles Morton
State of the nation: Population change
Back in 1961 Cornwall and Scilly were home to around 340,000 people. The population then began to rise sharply. By the end of this century on current trends it will be knocking on the door of a million, or 990,000 to be exact. While that’s likely to be the least of our worries if ‘business … Continue reading State of the nation: Population change
State of the nation: identity
In 2021 79,941 of Cornwall’s residents went to the trouble of writing ‘Cornish’ in their response to the census question on national identity. Another 9,031 wrote ‘Cornish’ while also checking the tick-box for ‘British’. Together these accounted for 15.6% of residents. This was an increase of about 16,000 on the 13.8% who declared a Cornish … Continue reading State of the nation: identity
St Germans and Calstock: contrasting patterns of migration
The civil servants who drew up boundaries of registration districts in the 1830s were surprisingly modernist. They took scant regard of the boundaries of traditional counties, unchanged for centuries, crossing them whenever they wanted. Launceston Registration District (RD) for example included parishes in west Devon while Calstock was for a time part of the Tavistock … Continue reading St Germans and Calstock: contrasting patterns of migration
State of the Cornish nation: pay
What’s been happening to wages and salaries in Cornwall recently? The gross weekly pay of full-time workers in Cornwall, although still languishing behind that of Britain as a whole, has been catching up since 2021. Time will tell whether this is a post-covid short-term blip or whether it means the long-awaited ‘high-wage economy’ that policy-makers … Continue reading State of the Cornish nation: pay
The lost kings of Cornwall
One of the genealogies of the kings of Glamorgan includes a line of kings assumed to be Cornish/Dumnonian because of the inclusion in it of Custennin (Constantine) and Gereint (Gerent). We know that Constantine was a king in the south west of Britain around 530. We also know that Gerent was described as the ruler … Continue reading The lost kings of Cornwall
Launceston data trigger dilemma
I have to admit to being somewhat perplexed by the migration pattern of the generation of 1850 in the Launceston Registration District (RD) as revealed in my Victorian lives project. In this largely agricultural and rural RD adjacent to the border with Devon one might expect more short-distance migration across that border and a lower … Continue reading Launceston data trigger dilemma
Cornish studies resources 