St Anthony in Meneage: moving on and moving up

St Anthony in Meneage is a small parish on the Lizard peninsula. In Victorian times it was home to a farming community together with a mix of craftsmen and a sole coastguard boatman. The coastguard was William Johnson from Norfolk, married to Mary from Wicklow in Ireland. The couple’s eldest children had been born in … Continue reading St Anthony in Meneage: moving on and moving up

The Cornish declaration of independence

Browsing through A.L.Rowse’s The Little Land of Cornwall the other day, I revisited his account of Samuel Johnson’s skit of the late 1770s when Johnson was arguing the case against American independence. Dr Johnson was attempting to show up the absurdity of the American claims by supposing the rage for independence had spread to Cornwall … Continue reading The Cornish declaration of independence