Library member Dr Robin Agnew has written an essay about the Victorian publisher George Smith (pictured above), his career and his friendship with Charlotte Brontë. You can read it as a PDF here.
We’ve recently added a new book to the library collections. A Cornish Cargo: The Untold History of a Victorian Seafaring Family, by Alison Baxter. It tells the true story of Alison’s ancestors, from their move to Hayle to their subsequent adventures throughout the 19th century. Her blog follows below.
A Cornish Cargo
In 1839 a little girl stitched a neat sampler, the hundreds of tiny crosses displaying her command of the alphabet, the verse a reminder of her Christian faith. The child, Joanna Woolcock Dupen, was born in 1832 in Penzance, and baptised in the Wesleyan chapel there. According to the certificate, her father was working as a confectioner, which seems a remarkably tame occupation for a man who had previously sailed out of Falmouth to Ireland and the Mediterranean, braving the heavy seas in a small, single-masted cutter. He must soon have tired of stirring vats of sugar to satisfy the sweet tooth of the townsfolk, because when Joanna was three years old, the family moved to Hayle. Her father, Sharrock Dupen, had taken the job of steward on the new steam packet Herald, a vessel that was to transform the journey from Cornwall to Bristol.
The child Joanna was my great-grandmother’s oldest sister, the first of a long family of thirteen, and Sharrock Dupen was my great-great-grandfather. An ordinary man, like most of our ancestors, but emblematic of an age when the power of steam was changing the world. Every week, the wooden Herald set off from the quay at Hayle, over the sandy bar and out into the bay for the overnight journey along the north coast, past the treacherous rocks of Hartland Point and into the mouth of the Avon. She carried tin, copper and iron goods from the foundries, returning with a cargo of everyday necessities for the shopkeepers of Hayle: coffee, butter, soap, needles, candles and buttons. Sharrock Dupen, a rotund, cheerful man, as we can see from his portrait, supplied the passengers with food, drink and reassurance. ‘We shall have a voyage as calm as a sail in a duck pond,’ he told one anxious traveller mendaciously.
When I inherited Joanna’s sampler, it inspired me to trace the history of the Dupens. I knew little about them apart from the fact that they were said to be of Huguenot origin. The one story I had been told was, I thought, bound to be apocryphal. We all inherit family myths that we enjoy without fully believing in them. Mine is about vegetables. In the 1930s my grandfather, a sceptical engineer, wrote this letter to the editor of the Morning Post: Mr Dupen’s Grandchild on a Family “Fairy Story”
Sir – With regard to your announcement about the Cornish Broccoli industry in Saturday’s issue of the “Morning Post”, as children we were often told that our grandfather – the Mr Dupen mentioned – first grew Broccoli in England, but I’m afraid we rather regarded this as some subtle kind of fairy story to encourage our appetite for the vegetable! From the announcement it would appear that he really was interested in the broccoli plant, but are there any records to show that he did actually introduce the plant into England, and if so, from where?
He thought it was a fantasy and so did my father, who passed it on to me and my brother as way of encouraging us to eat our greens. But now that the newspaper archive is searchable online, I was able to uncover the true story of how my great-great-grandfather is credited with rescuing the economy of Cornwall.
He was not in fact the first to grow broccoli but the first to transport it from Hayle to Bristol in the 1830s. An initial shipment of four dozen heads became fourteen dozen the following week and Sharrock Dupen had a virtual monopoly of the local trade until the growers themselves cut him out. Twenty years later, the steamer from Hayle was transporting 860 baskets containing fifteen to eighteen dozen heads of broccoli each. In a commemorative speech in 1933, the Lord Mayor of Bristol attributed the prosperity of Cornwall to this vegetable trade. The miner, so it was said, had become the broccoli grower.
My book, A Cornish Cargo, started with Sharrock Dupen but turned into an account of how his children also had their lives changed by the coming of steamships and railways. The boys went to sea at a time when it had become possible to serve as an engineer instead of an ordinary sailor and I was able to trace their voyages around the world. The girls too left home, travelling by steam packet to Bristol and onwards by the Great Western Railway to take up posts as governesses and schoolteachers. The only Dupens left in Cornwall now lie in the churchyard in Hayle. People sometimes tell me I’m lucky to have such interesting ancestors to write about, but I believe everyone has family stories that are worth telling. History is not just about famous people, battles, and politics. It’s about how ordinary people lived their everyday lives.
In normal times, Morrab Library would be hosting a large event (with lots of cake!) to celebrate the launch of this major new website exploring the life and works of Arthur Quiller-Couch. But instead, we’re delighted to tell our members all about it through this blog.
The site is curated by library member and leading researcher Andrew Symons, who has developed the articles and resources it contains in collaboration with Morrab Library, which holds collections of the works of Q and other members of the Couch family.
The product of many years’ study, the website offers the largest and most authoritative online collection of research into Arthur Quiller-Couch. It includes studies of many of Q’s literary works and the cultural landscape in which he worked. You will also find short articles, maps, summaries, chronologies, biographies of Q and his family – and a wealth of other resources – all of which help to illuminate his writings.
Many people in Cornwall will be familiar with the name of Q but may not know the extent of his work. He was a popular novelist with an international reputation, a poet, a literary critic, an anthologist and an academic who championed the importance of literature in the education of young people. Born in 1863, he lived through an extraordinary period of British history until his death in 1944. The lives of his grandfather, father and uncles also reveal much about the fascinating scientific and cultural history of Cornwall in the nineteenth century.
This site is designed to act as the fulcrum for wide-ranging study and exploration of Arthur Quiller-Couch and his writings. It welcomes submissions of original academic work from other researchers.
It is hoped that the website will also provide an introduction to the works of this outstanding figure in Cornish cultural life. Newcomers to Q may be surprised to find how contemporary his voice sounds today. Once known as the ‘Greatest Living Cornishman’, Q was a brilliant man who deserves to be rediscovered. The hope is that this important new website will help in that process.
Library member Kensa Broadhurst is studying at Exeter University, and has been using Morrab Library’s extensive archive collections for her research since we re-opened. She came across two fascinating documents, written by prisoners of war. The library holds facsimiles of their diaries. Here’s Kensa’s take on them….
I have been working my way gradually through the archives at the Morrab Library whilst researching for my PhD. The letters, journals and notebooks held in the Morrab archives are a real window into the past and offer a fascinating view of not only daily life, but contemporary views on the wider world too.
Two of the most interesting documents I have read recently concern Revolutionary France and the Napoleonic Wars. John Pollard, a ship’s Captain from Newlyn, was a prisoner of war in France from 1794-95 who kept a journal for a large portion of his time in captivity. Similarly, Captain James Quick was held captive from 1810-14. He wrote a series of letters to his wife in St Mawes detailing his life as a prisoner.
Pollard tells us that he began to write his journal only after several months of captivity and so it is unclear whether his account of this early time is copied from elsewhere or based on memory. Pollard’s account not only details the trials, tribulations and practicalities of life as a prisoner of war, but offers a contemporary view of wider events in Revolutionary France. Some of these are hearsay, or titbits of news picked up sometimes long after the events in questions, such as the death of Louis XVII, or the results of Naval Battles, but through Pollard’s journal we are also able to track the effects of inflation and food shortages on France at this time. The price of bread steadily increases from 1 to 15 livres per pound for example. I found it fascinating to discover that whilst the prisoners were given a certain food allowance each day, Pollard was also able to work and earn money. Although there were times when he was unable to work due to illness, the weather or changes in regulations within the prisons in which he was held, at various times Pollard works as a gardener, builds roads, repairs fishing nets, heaves rubbish and works in a grocers, variously grinding pepper and coffee. We also hear of other prisoners getting drunk in the local public house, starting a fight and breaking things! Pollard also keeps track of the escapes, and attempts, of other prisoners. Some of these are more successful than others.
As Quick’s letters were written with an intended recipient in mind, his wife, they chart a wider range of emotions than Pollard’s journal. We sense his frustration in the early letters when Quick has evidently not received any letters himself, then relief that he does finally hear from his wife, coupled with annoyance that his brothers do not think to write to him. The letters also discuss the practicalities of receiving post (via the Transport Board seem to be the most reliable means), and the frustrations of not being a regarded a Prisoner of War by the Committee for Prisoners of War at Lloyds of London (and therefore able to claim money for support) as he had been shipwrecked on the French coast and then imprisoned. The French view was that all were regarded as prisoners of war, whether shipwrecked, captured or forced to seek shelter in a French port by adverse weather. Lloyds evidently wanted to avoid paying out any money! Quick’s letters also give us an insight into contemporary networks within Cornwall. In his letters he lists other Cornishmen with whom he is held captive and their hometowns in order that his wife and get word to their families of their situation. As well as men from Mevagissey we hear of several men from St Ives. We learn Quick spent his time in captivity learning French and some of the language begins to find its way into his writing.
Examining documents from the past not only makes me realise how privileged we are to have a wealth of archives, such as those held at the Morrab, but also make me feel more connected to the past. As I drive around Penzance and the local area, places which feature in the documents I have read now jump out at me as I think about the people who lived there and the events which took place which I have discovered.
Cornish male vocal group, the Bryher’s Boys, recently collaborated with Morrab Library to create a video for one of their recordings. Using evocative images from the Library’s extensive historic Photo Archive, they were able to capture the essence of their song in pictures, and they’re delighted to share the finished product with us. The story follows below…
How did this video come about?
Bryher’s Boys are a busy Cornish male vocal group so the restrictions of the Covid Crisis have hit us hard! We’ve adapted by producing our own videos, both for our fans and, sometimes, to use in place of planned live performances which could now not take place. The Morrab Library Photo Archive was invaluable in helping us with a video we were asked to produce by the organisers of Yn Chruinnaght – The Celtic Gathering, a festival we’d been invited to represent Cornwall at in the Isle of Man. The song we chose – Row Boys Row – is all about Cornish maritime heritage, and the history of pilchard fishing here, so we wanted to marry the music with some images which would evoke that period. Thanks to the Archive’s 10,000+ photos covering many elements of vintage Cornish life – all available and searchable online – we were able to assemble a series of images to summon up that era, which perfectly complement the song. We’re very grateful to the Library for permission to use this resource which has helped disseminate this little piece of Cornish heritage to an audience of thousands, worldwide.
Backgrounder for Bryher’s Boys
Bryher’s Boys formed back in 2017 when the Tenor and Bass sections of several Cornish choirs were press ganged to form a new crew especially designed to navigate the choppy waters of Sea Shanty singing!
Their collective love of the established folk repertoire, both Nautical and Cornish, proved an immediate hit with West Cornwall audiences, clocking-up almost 200 performances to date in venues as diverse as private parties, weddings, crowded pubs, festivals, community events, large scale concerts – even aboard the Royal Fleet Auxilary ship Lyme Bay!
Although firmly rooted in the male vocal tradition, their trademark style of free harmony ensures that no two performances sound exactly the same.
Named after bandleader Trevor Brookes’ youngest daughter, Bryher, the Boys do not hail from the Scilly Isle of that name, but come from all over West Cornwall, from Newlyn to Truro.
The group are proud to have been selected to officially represent the Duchy of Cornwall at Europe’s largest music festival, Festival Interceltique Lorient, in 2019, taking their unique mix of Traditional Cornish songs, shanties and shaggy dog stories to a new audience of more than 800,000 attendees, singing to 9,000 people at a time!
Last year, they recorded and released their first CD, The Ballad of the Boy Jacq.
Wandering down Chapel Street in Penzance, you cannot fail to recognise that you have entered that part of town where history feels close-by. The sea in the distance, the church and the chapel architecture is impressive, the Turk’s Head Tavern and the baroque wonder of the Egyptian House, the Portuguese consulate and almost opposite the house where George Eliot stayed waiting for calm weather for her voyage to the Scillies. Reading Melissa’s book is like taking a similar peregrination through lost corridors of time to recover a sense of the rich liveliness of Penwith’s past. Welcome to the psychogeography of Bronte’s Territories.
The Brontes are still much in the news. The Irish Times, just two weeks ago, were reporting on the O.U.P. computer analysis of Wuthering Heights apparently confirming it to be the work of Emily and not, as had been suggested, that of her brother Branwell. Iconoclasm may be in vogue. However, a square in Brussels – the city where two of the Bronte sisters studied French – is to be named in honour of the literary siblings. Other authors make claim to curious events in Shropshire in the early years of the 19th century drew the parents of genius together. It is to the intellectual and feminine furore of Penzance and its inspiring hinterland that Hardie’s work appropriately returns us.
In a key chapter on the literature and legend of Cornwall from 1760 much mention is made of the intriguing and taciturn figure of Joseph Carne, a geologist of great renown and an energetic banker. His personality was such that he combined a skill with numbers with a strong Methodist belief and mixed in a variety of literary circles. Nearby Falmouth was a key port for the Packet boats recorded in the poetry and memoirs of Byron and Southey. It too was the home of the Quaker family of Foxes who founded the Cornwall Polytechnic Society in 1832. Carne was a friend and shared their Non-Conformist beliefs. Hardie shows how Carne encouraged his daughter in her geological studies and mentions the doctors, engineers, vicars and scientists whose cultural sources were enriched by contacts which included Bretons, Huguenots, Hessians as well as a significant Jewish community. She reminds us that in reading Davy, for example, we encounter not just a socially beneficent scientist, a traveller and a poet. This is the endowment the Branwell sisters took to Haworth.
It is interesting to consider that within this Cornish background at this period there were a number of competing beliefs and attitudes. There were the mythical beliefs fostered from folklore- piskies and stories in the expiring Cornish language. There was the old religion of Rome not far beneath the surface. Yet there were also new discoveries especially in medicine and geology that fostered a scientific empiricism. This can be seen in figures such as Davies Gilbert to whom this book gives due prominence- a polymath, mathematician, engineer and President of the Royal Society and a wonderful diarist to boot. William Temple much later stated, “The Church exists primarily for the sake of those who are still outside it. It is a mistake to suppose that God is only, or even chiefly, concerned with religion.” It was the evangelical zeal of the Wesley brothers and their belief in education, temperance combined with stunningly beautiful hymns. It was also a challenge to superstition. It is often said it averted revolution which France and later Peterloo portended.
Melissa Hardie shows us the other supportive factors that came into this heady mixture and sustained the Branwells and flowered in the Bronte’s work. These are twofold; the societies and the family or kinship links. The Penzance Ladies Reading group who carefully studied together a stunning variety of literature from the classics of the Ancients to the contemporary travel writings. Not forgetting the subversive eloquence of Lord Byron, a gentleman with Cornish links through the Trevanions. The founding of libraries and collection of artefacts had practical even economic benefits. The Royal Cornwall Geological Society studies into metallic intrusions assisted the efficiency of mining. Local banks provided the capital for further developments in the industry as well as the magnificent Wesleyan Chapels that the Carnes, Branwells and Battens founded and fostered.
The author has researched both land and legacy extensively. Her approach is frequently imaginative and sometimes speculative. This is a strength because she is also at pains to inform the reader of the limitations of the evidence. Footnotes and suggested reading in themselves are useful but the illustrations are worthy of pondering- several works of art in themselves. They add significant detail. This patient work by Melissa supported by other members of the resplendent Hypatia Trust must be counted as filling a deep fissure, or as we might say in Cornwall, a zawn in Bronte Studies.
August 5, 2020.
