Just over one in 20 men and women in the Cornwall of the 1860s was recorded in the census as a shopkeeper, merchant or trader of some sort. These ranged from the humble itinerant hawkers peddling their trinkets from parish to parish, through innkeepers, grocers, drapers and other shopkeepers to merchants buying and selling a … Continue reading The butcher and the baker but not the candlestick maker
Tag: Helston
Cornish craftsmen in the 1860s
Nowadays fewer than one in five of the labour force are engaged in actually making things, in the sense of taking some raw materials and turning them into something else. The rest of us, if we are what economists call ‘active’, are instead selling stuff to each other, meeting demand for healthcare, education or hedonism, … Continue reading Cornish craftsmen in the 1860s
Victorian Cornwall’s leading sector: metal mining
There was no question about Cornwall’s leading economic sector in the mid-1800s. In terms of income, productivity and employment it was metal mining. The early 1860s marked the peak of Cornish mining. Deep copper mining had broken out of its eighteenth-century heartland west of Truro in the 1810s, first to mid-Cornwall in the 1810s and … Continue reading Victorian Cornwall’s leading sector: metal mining
Gwennap and the 1801 insurrection: Part 2
By March 1801 the price of food in the market towns of Devon had reached an unbearable level. Residents began to adopt the by now familiar tactics of the food riot – imposing a maximum price at the markets and touring local farms with the aim of ‘encouraging’ farmers to send more grain to market. … Continue reading Gwennap and the 1801 insurrection: Part 2
Helston: quaint old Cornish town?
In the centuries before the 1600s Helston was one of the two most important market towns west of Truro, the other being Penryn. Falmouth and Penzance were not on the map until the 1500s while Camborne and Redruth were just small churchtowns indistinguishable from the scores of others scattered over the inhospitable and lightly populated … Continue reading Helston: quaint old Cornish town?
Christmas in west Cornwall in 1920
This was first posted on Christmas Eve, 2020. What was Christmas like around a hundred years ago? Let’s look at the Cornishman newspaper in 1920 for a few clues. Overall, it was generally quiet. At Penzance it was reported as ‘celebrated somewhat quietly’ while over at Helston it also ‘passed off very quietly’. We might … Continue reading Christmas in west Cornwall in 1920
Hallelujah! Helston praises the Lord
Religion played an inescapable part in the lives of the Cornish of the Victorian period. By modern standards attendance at church or, more usually, chapel was incredibly high, although contemporaries were appalled that only around a half of adults attended church in 1851 when there was a religious census. A wealth of social events were … Continue reading Hallelujah! Helston praises the Lord
The good old days in quiet Cornwall
Sepia-toned photos of quiet nineteenth century Cornish towns and villages make us conjure up imagined memories of those peaceful days of our great-grandparents. But records of the police courts at two Cornish towns serve to qualify this nostalgic glow somewhat. The towns were St Austell in mid-Cornwall and Helston in the west. The time was … Continue reading The good old days in quiet Cornwall
The state of Cornish towns in 1600: Part 2
As Richard Carew turned his attention westwards, his accounts of Cornish towns became noticeably briefer, probably reflecting his lack of acquaintance with places increasingly distant from his home at Antony, close to the Tamar. St Columb was merely ‘a mean market town’, while St Austell was still too insignificant to get a mention. Despite being … Continue reading The state of Cornish towns in 1600: Part 2
Bob Fitzsimmons: Cornwall’s world boxing champion
Cornwall can claim a world boxing champion. And not just a champion but someone who won three world championships at different weights – middle, heavy and light heavy. The house in Wendron Street where Bob was born In actual fact, Bob Fitzsimmons’ connection to Cornwall was rather tangential. Born in Helston on this day in … Continue reading Bob Fitzsimmons: Cornwall’s world boxing champion
Cornish studies resources 