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
Category: political history
Heraldry and medieval identity, the 1549 rising and choughs
Save yourself all the bother of having to read them - here's the fifth instalment of very short summaries of some recent academic takes on Cornwall ... Nigel Saul ascribes the Carminow family's myth about their coat of arms to the family's sixteenth century decline while going on to claim the Cornish identity was by … Continue reading Heraldry and medieval identity, the 1549 rising and choughs
Stuart loyalism, early language revivalists and islandness
Another three micro-summaries of reviews ... James Harris digs into expressions of loyalty in Restoration Cornwall and finds they were the result of a well-organised Tory propaganda campaign. In a second article James Harris compares seventeenth century attempts to revive the Cornish language with the situation in south-west Wales and identifies the lack of support … Continue reading Stuart loyalism, early language revivalists and islandness
St Mellion: trees, wooden and family
St Mellion near the Tamar in south-east Cornwall is now home to an Australian-owned up-market golf resort with its hundreds of holiday lodges and periodic controversial planning disputes. In the 1800s it would have been much less manicured. It’s another in what sometimes feels like an endless run of smallish rural parishes that were mainly … Continue reading St Mellion: trees, wooden and family
Penzance: my brother was a baron
Among the roughly 4,500 Cornish men and women captured in the Victorian Lives database it’s not that common to come across someone with connections reaching into the Privy Council and the heart of the British establishment. But that’s exactly what we find in Penzance. In 1850 Louise d’Este Courtney was born at New Street, Penzance, … Continue reading Penzance: my brother was a baron
Penzance’s ‘truly independent cordwainers’
Penzance was a diverse place, containing a variety of occupations. The largest occupational sector in the town was craftsmen, accounting for almost a half of the adult men. Indeed, this was the largest of any Cornish parish in 1861. Among them were shoemakers. The shoemakers of Penzance had been described in1845 as ‘the bravest of … Continue reading Penzance’s ‘truly independent cordwainers’
Corruption in a Cornish borough
The following is an extract from Chapter 11 (The Borough) of The Real World of Poldark: Cornwall 1783-1820. The Reverend Richard Gurney, Vicar of Cuby, was at the centre of Tregony’s borough politics throughout the Poldark years. In 1792 he had been implicated in encouraging ‘mob uproar’. Three effigies representing gentlemen of Tregony who opposed … Continue reading Corruption in a Cornish borough
The mystery of the missing Irish
Recent blogs on this site have uncovered migrants from across the Channel who were living in Cornwall in the early 1500s. But what about migrants from the opposite direction, from across the Celtic Sea? There were a handful of people called Welshman in the early records, Walter and John Wylsheman at East Looe and another … Continue reading The mystery of the missing Irish
David Penhaligon
On the morning of December 22nd, 1986, Cornwall’s best-known politician of the late twentieth century, David Penhaligon, was killed in a car crash. The death of Penhaligon, 42 years old and Liberal MP for Truro since 1974, came as a huge shock. Penhaligon was the son of a caravan park owner in Truro. Educated at … Continue reading David Penhaligon
How the Cornish Carews lost their heads
Many will be aware of the name of Richard Carew of Antony, near Torpoint. He was the author of the Survey of Cornwall, published in 1602, the first such history written in the British Isles and a window onto life in Cornwall in the late 1500s. His son and grandsons are less well known but … Continue reading How the Cornish Carews lost their heads
Cornish studies resources 