Bernard Deacon's Blog, page 31

Quiet Colan

Colan is a small parish wedged between Newquay to the west and St Columb to the east. Now in the path of Newquay as it sprawls eastwards, gobbling up the countryside as it goes, Colan in the mid-1800s was a quiet, out of the way place. It contributes just two children to the Victorian Lives … Continue reading Quiet Colan →

Contrasts at Constantine

Nineteenth century Constantine was a parish of contrasts. North of the village granite quarries pockmarked the southern edges of the Carnmenellis upland and gave employment to many. To the south, rich farmland fell away to the woods and creeks of the Helford estuary. Ann Williams was the daughter of William and Jane. William was a … Continue reading Contrasts at Constantine →

Christmas day in the workhouse and a corn mill in Cardinham

Four month old George Cornish was one of the inmates of Bodmin workhouse in 1851. He was probably the illegitimate child of Mary Ann Cornish, also in the workhouse and described as a farm servant. George’s birthplace was given as St Columb, suggesting he had been born outside the workhouse but that Mary had had … Continue reading Christmas day in the workhouse and a corn mill in Cardinham →

A lonely life on the mining frontier

Peter Carlyon was born in Liskeard, the son of John and Mary Carlyon of Breage. John and Mary had left Breage between 1846 and 1848, looking to escape the slump in the western tin mining parishes in the later 1840s. They arrived at the booming mining district of east Cornwall, finding accommodation in the crowded … Continue reading A lonely life on the mining frontier →

Short-term family migration

Although it’s proved difficult to find a high proportion of the 11 year olds living in Camborne in 1861 and trace their life-courses through to 1891 most can be traced over the shorter period from 1851 to 1871. This enables us to test a feature that demographers have commonly asserted was present in nineteenth century … Continue reading Short-term family migration →

Camborne or California?

In the previous blog I suggested that many Camborne children in the Victorian Lives database that are yet to be traced had probably emigrated. It may seem contradictory therefore to propose in this blog that a higher proportion of Camborne’s children may have stayed in Camborne when compared with other mining parishes in Cornwall, especially … Continue reading Camborne or California? →

Camborne’s overseas connections

At least one child in eight in Camborne on our database spent some time overseas. This is likely to be an under-estimate. In nineteenth century Cornish mining parishes, at least a quarter of men, possibly as many as a third, would have spent some time overseas. For women that proportion might be around 15 per … Continue reading Camborne’s overseas connections →

An interim glance at the big picture

It’s becoming apparent that, as expected, the proportion of women we have traced through the census and registration data from 1851 to 1891 is consistently lower than that of men. This is the case despite the generally accepted conclusion that men were much more likely to disappear overseas than women. Overall, of the 921 entries … Continue reading An interim glance at the big picture →

Magnetic north

By 1891 for every one boy in the 1861 Calstock database left in Cornwall, two could be found in the north of England. Although the numbers are too low to draw any hard and fast conclusions, it looks as if there was a marked propensity to move from Calstock to Northumberland and Durham in particular. … Continue reading Magnetic north →

Victorian Cornwall’s boom parish

To find Cornwall’s boom town in the mid-nineteenth century we have to look east, as far east as we can go and still be in Cornwall, to Calstock on the tidal reaches of the Tamar. In 1851, when the folk in the Victorian Lives database were 11 years old, Calstock was in the middle of … Continue reading Victorian Cornwall’s boom parish →