The call of the Carrick Roads

Falmouth’s deep natural harbour, the growth of the Atlantic trade and the presence of the Post Office’s packet ships had led to boom times in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Ships called in from all over the world, their crew and passengers disembarking in the town. As a result, it’s sometimes claimed that Falmouth … Continue reading The call of the Carrick Roads →

A bird of passage

As a break from the succession of miners and agricultural labourers who have a heavy presence in these blogs let’s look at the life of someone who appeared in the Victorian Lives database but whose connection with Cornwall was only fleeting. Moreover, although not quite Downton Abbey territory, it takes us into the world of … Continue reading A bird of passage →

Port Isaac: of medical men and myths

Doc Martin: working hard to reproduce stereotypes of Cornwall and sell second homes Ask people what they know about the village of Port Isaac on Cornwall’s north coast in Endellion parish and they’re likely to respond with ‘Doc Martin’. This apparently endless series about a lugubrious doctor in a ‘sleepy’ Cornish fishing village is a … Continue reading Port Isaac: of medical men and myths →

Memories of former times: Egloskerry

Egloskerry provides us with a fine example of the small rural parishes that lie to the west and north of Launceston in north Cornwall. In the nineteenth century heavily dependent on farming, nonetheless its children were not inevitably rooted to the soil. Quite the opposite in fact as, of the five Egloskerry children in the … Continue reading Memories of former times: Egloskerry →

Egloshayle – born in the workhouse

Egloshayle in the nineteenth century was a predominantly rural parish although including the bit of Wadebridge that spilled over the bridge from St Breock. Nevertheless, the 14 children from Egloshayle who appear in our database could claim rather more diverse family backgrounds than the bog-standard rural parish. There were a couple whose fathers were the … Continue reading Egloshayle – born in the workhouse →

Looe’s migrating fishing families

Arriving at East Looe, we meet the first substantial community of fishing families on our long trek through the Cornish parishes of Victorian times. In fact, according to the 1851 census fewer than one in ten of the adult men in East Looe got their living from fishing. Full-time fishermen (there may have been many … Continue reading Looe’s migrating fishing families →

Miner’s cottage, manor house and famous neighbours

As the examples in the previous blog showed, some of the children in our Victorian Lives database did not move far beyond the confines of the district in which they grew up. Others, for a variety of reasons, broke away and by the time they were 40 their childhood landscapes were just fond memories (or … Continue reading Miner’s cottage, manor house and famous neighbours →

Davidstow: free will or predestination?

For many men in Victorian Cornwall freewill must have been a remote concept. With predictable regularity son followed father into the father’s occupation, generation after generation. Social mobility may have been an alien idea for the vast majority but some men broke the bonds and switched jobs.  But who? William Francis Burnard grew up in … Continue reading Davidstow: free will or predestination? →

The Thomases go to town

Cury is a small, rural parish on the Lizard peninsula, four to five miles south of the market town of Helston. We might expect some of those growing up in Cury to be attracted to their nearby town. And so they were. Ann Thomas for example grew up in a farm labourer’s family in Cury. … Continue reading The Thomases go to town →

Cubert: local moves and global migrants

Cubert is a small parish between Perranporth and Newquay which supplied five children for the database. One has not yet been traced beyond 1861; the others all left the parish at some point but three of them only moved within the confines of mid-Cornwall. Cubert churchtown As an example, we can take James Edwin Hubber, … Continue reading Cubert: local moves and global migrants →