Not everyone in St Austell was fortunate enough to be born into the right family, as was John Lovering, who we met in the previous blog. Even these days, a century and a half on, if we don’t have a house or houses to sell or a fat pension to pay for an expensive care … Continue reading St Austell: the good old days
Tag: St Austell
St Austell’s clay merchants
In Victorian St Austell, one of Cornwall’s largest parishes in terms of area, a new industry was emerging, even as mining collapsed and farming faltered. The extraction of clay employed just five per cent of the men of the parish in 1851 but within a generation that proportion had ballooned to 22 per cent. While … Continue reading St Austell’s clay merchants
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
Mock mayors in Cornwall
Parish feasts in the 1700s were often accompanied by the choosing of mock mayors. These were parodies of real mayor-choosing events, an inversion of the real thing accompanied by copious drinking. The custom was not restricted to those boroughs that had real mayors but took place even in rural parishes without mayors. For example, at … Continue reading Mock mayors in Cornwall
The mystery of mid-Cornwall’s literati
The cottage in which Clemo grew up. On this day in 1916 one of Cornwall’s foremost writers was born at Goonamarris, in Cornwall’s clay country. This was Jack Clemo, writer of dialect tales, autobiographies, novels and theological works, but best remembered for his poetry. Clemo’s works – stark, harsh, unforgiving – and his opinions – … Continue reading The mystery of mid-Cornwall’s literati
Who was Bishop Colenso?
Christian missionaries don’t get such a good press these days, often viewed as merely an arm of western colonialism, accompanying the trader and the soldier. But some missionaries broke the mould. One was John Colenso, born at St Austell on January 24th, 1814. The Colensos were actually a Penzance family. John’s father was a mine … Continue reading Who was Bishop Colenso?
Cornish towns in 1698
Celia Fiennes journeyed through Cornwall on horseback in 1698. In her journal she provided brief accounts of some of the towns she saw. Having endured an hour-long crossing of the Tamar on the Cremyll ferry, she took the southern route to the west. She seems to have been most impressed, and a little scared, by … Continue reading Cornish towns in 1698
Cornish rugby football finds its feet
Last weekend saw the Rugby World Cup final. Nowadays rugby and association football are viewed as entirely separate games. In fact they share a common ancestor, which we should just call ‘football’. In the middle of the 1800s football was played at the public schools as well as by more working-class communities up and down … Continue reading Cornish rugby football finds its feet
Deprivation in Cornwall: new data
Recently a new Index of Multiple Deprivation was published by the Government. This index measures deprivation in several dimensions, including income, health, educational qualifications and crime among others. In the press reports of this, no comparison was made with earlier indices. Although the methodology has changed somewhat, which makes the exercise a little difficult, it’s … Continue reading Deprivation in Cornwall: new data
Cornish studies resources 