Reading time: 5 minutes Mine to Die, by Rob Donovan Troubadour Publishing, 2024 218 pages, 27 images £9.99 Rob Donovan has given us a compelling and moving whistle-stop tour of Cornwall’s industrial history. It is not, I hasten to add, a comprehensive history; readers are here directed to A. K. Hamilton Jenkin, John Rowe, and J. A. Buckley. Rather, Donovan’s work is a history of exploitation and neglect, which seeks to demonstrate that, …in a capitalist industrialising society where profit is more valued than people, the unregulated pursuit of greater personal wealth will come at the expens ..read more

Listening time: one hour The Fortune Teller, by Henry Bacour, late 1800s ‘The Piskie Trap’ is a podcast produced by Keith Wallis, a local folklorist from Tywardreath. In his broadcasts he discusses the ghostly legends of Jamaica Inn and Bodmin Gaol, witchcraft trials and mermaid legends. Keith was kind enough to invite me to talk on his latest show, specifically about fortune-tellers and the phenomenon of ‘ill-wishing’ in Cornwall and Devon. I examine how superstition and credulity could be exploited by people looking to make a passable living out of such things…and few did it better, in my op ..read more

Reading time: 20 minutes Rule, Britannia During the Napoleonic Wars, the British radicalism inspired by the French Revolution of 1789 dissipated in the face of the threat of invasion, and a popular patriotism gripped the nation. This was the era of Trafalgar, Waterloo and John Bull, when people conveniently forgot George III was German (at least he wasn’t French), and his son The Prince Regent wasn’t a dissolute philanderer1. James Gillray, Bonaparte, 48 Hours After Landing, 1803. John Bull, a yokel soldier, has Napoleon’s head impaled on a pitchfork. By 1812 the British Army had a regular fig ..read more

Reading time: 20 minutes I do swear, that I have not received or had by myself, or any person whatsoever, in trust for me, or for my use or benefit, directly or indirectly, any sum or sums of money, office, place, or employment, gift, or reward, or any promise or security, for any money, office, employment, or gift, in order to give my vote at this election; and that I have not been before polled at this election. So help me God. ~ The Bribery Oath. The 1729 Bribery Act was introduced to address corruption in elections1 Everybody comes out ahead. ~ Joseph Heller, Catch-22, 1962, p248 Issues an ..read more

Reading time: 30 minutes He was outspoken in his opinions and feared no man. ~ The Anaconda Standard, June 11 1891, p5 Human life was the cheapest thing in Butte. ~ Hell With the Lid Off: Butte, Montana, by Horace Smith, New Bay Books, 2021. Kindle edition, p178 From Gas Street to Montana The only known image of William John Penrose, from the Butte Weekly Miner, June 11 1891, p1 One of Butte, Montana’s more controversial citizens – and there were many in his day – was born in Camborne in 1855. In 1861, young William John Penrose was living with his family in Gas Street1. His father was a miner ..read more

Reading time: 25 minutes (If you missed Part One, click here…) As we saw in Part One, Camborne’s Police Force in the early 1870s was believed by many townspeople to be taking their duties to oppressive extremes. Over the first weekend of October 1873, two brothers, James and Joseph Bawden, were arrested for assaulting several officers. When in prison awaiting trial, they were alleged to have been beaten up by the constables. Several thousand angry and armed people crowded around Camborne Town Hall on Tuesday, October 7 to hear the outcome of their hearing. It was hoped that the counter-accusat ..read more

Reading time: 20 minutes Miners and tinners were archetypal male rioters, yet also it is notorious that whole communities shared in their movements… ~ E. P. Thompson, Customs in Common, Penguin, 1991, p310 Town and Police Camborne in 1873 was a mining boomtown, the Wild West minus guns and Hollywood glamour. Between 1841 and 1871, its population expanded dramatically by 5,000, making a total population of just under 15,000 by 1873. To illustrate the lack of growth since, Camborne’s population was only 20,000 in 20111. Camborne looked very different in 1873. There was no library, just a terrace ..read more

(For those that missed Part One, click HERE) (With the invaluable collaboration of Nick Serpell, club historian, Redruth RFC.) Reading time: 25 minutes …expect a punch to come through the scrum from them… ~ sage advice to a Redruth hooker making his Boxing Day debut, 2000s You can f___ off, you turncoat… ~ how a player who switched clubs was once greeted by an aggrieved fan, 2000s As we saw last week, Camborne and Redruth only met on Boxing Day on 19 occasions between 1877 and 1927, which included periods of seriously strained relations between the two clubs. Fixtures were suspended between Ma ..read more

(With the invaluable collaboration of Nick Serpell, club historian, Redruth RFC.) Reading time: 25 minutes You that follow foot-bal playing…you are to be condemned from God…it must be laid down in the dust. ~ George Fox (1624-1691), The Vials of the Wrath of God, London, 1655, p11 We wish each other the compliments of the season then get stuck in… ~ W. A. “Billy” Phillips, Redruth RFC, 1952; courtesy Nick Serpell Rugby anarchy… Daily Mirror, March 10 1958, p23 In 1958 Warwickshire beat Cornwall at Coventry to win the RFU County Championship. They should have been jubilant, but far from it. The ..read more

Reading time: 20 minutes The Feast that the Rev. Chappell built… The Church of St Martin and St Meriadoc, Camborne, 1900. Kresen Kernow, ref. corn05074 Up to the mid-1800s – and the centuries before – a Cornish town’s annual Feast Day, held in honour of a Patron Saint, was regularly an excuse for a Rabelaisian fair of gluttony, boozing, sports and lechery. For example, in 1857 the well-oiled attendants of St Clement’s Feast in Truro partook of a game of hurling through the streets, which culminated in violence and vandalism over a disputed goal. The offending goal-scorer was later fired in eff ..read more