These days, to the consternation of some of its residents, Budock is being inexorably joined to Falmouth by the remorseless sprawl of new housing. However, the urbanisation of Budock is not new. In the mid-nineteenth century the former boundaries of the parish extended as far as the estuary of the Fal to the north of … Continue reading Budock: town and country
Denying destiny: The Baptist from Breage
Our final foray into the lives of Breage Victorians introduces an example of social mobility. The vast majority of our forebears married partners from a similar social background. Children of labourers married labourers, the offspring of miners got hitched to miners, sons and daughters of farmers tended to end up with other farmers’ sons and … Continue reading Denying destiny: The Baptist from Breage
Absent husbands
As we saw in the previous blog, some people in the Victorian Lives project left while others stayed. It’s gradually becoming clear that sons and daughters of farmers were less likely to leave Cornwall than the offspring of the poor or those from mining families. But there were exceptions. Here is the tale of two … Continue reading Absent husbands
Mixed fortunes at Breage
Priscilla Carter was born at Trescowe, Breage, the second child of Francis and Elizabeth. Francis worked as a tin miner, as did the majority of the men of the parish. Priscilla grew up at Trescowe Hill and by 1871 she and a younger sister were at the dressing floors, while her elder brother and father … Continue reading Mixed fortunes at Breage
The rise and fall of Wheal Vor
Breage is the first major mining parish on our list. Although its glory days had passed, 60 per cent of the 54 children in the Victorian Lives database living in the parish in 1861 had been born into mining families. In the 1850s Wheal Vor was the major mine in the parish, employing over 1,000 … Continue reading The rise and fall of Wheal Vor
The boys from Braddock
Braddock is another small, rural parish in east Cornwall, best known as the site of a battle in 1642. This began the heroic story of the Cornish army that met its nemesis on the walls of Bristol within a year. By the early 1800s the sounds of battle were long gone, the clash of pikes … Continue reading The boys from Braddock
Boyton sunrise to Waterloo sunset
From Botusfleming on the lower reaches of the Tamar we travel up to Boyton on its upper reaches. Boyton was a border parish with the Tamar demarcating its eastern side. It’s six miles from the nearest town - Launceston - and by the 1850s was well into a process of rural depopulation. Its population, 551 … Continue reading Boyton sunrise to Waterloo sunset
Botusfleming: cherry village
It’s time to pay a brief visit to Botusfleming, one of Cornwall’s lesser-known parishes. The name does not imply a medieval Flemish connection: before the 1300s the parish was called Botflumyet or Botflumet, a Cornish placename. Although the meaning of Flumet is unclear, it’s most likely to be a personal name, so the parish was … Continue reading Botusfleming: cherry village
A roundabout route from Bodmin to Leeds
Fore Street, Bodmin In the previous blog we saw how one couple left Bodmin for Manchester. Such moves - from market towns to the big cities of the industrial north of England - were not unusual, as the case of Eber Webster shows. Eber had an unusual first name, but that was a boon for … Continue reading A roundabout route from Bodmin to Leeds
Go north young woman: from Bodmin to Manchester
Bodmin is the first place in our list of parishes to have a substantial number of craftsmen or shopkeepers. We might expect their offspring to move further than did farm labourers or farmers. On the other hand, people from market towns would have been less likely to go overseas than those from the mining communities. … Continue reading Go north young woman: from Bodmin to Manchester
Cornish studies resources 