Kernow to the Crystal Palace: Mary Kelynack’s Extraordinary Journey – a talk from Pamela Vass.

In August 1851 a curiously dressed, elderly woman was seen trudging along Southampton High Street. Passers by couldn’t fail to notice her, she wore a huge beaver bonnet and carried a corracle-like basket on her back. She was a Cornish fisherwoman, she said, in her 84th year, and was walking to London from the Land’s End to see the Great Exhibition.

Mary Kelynack spent her entire life in the small community of Newlyn in the far west of Cornwall. Yet she became so inspired by the wonders of the Great Exhibition in the Crystal Palace that she resolved to go. Travelling by steamer, coach or train was beyond her means but there was one thing she could do – walk.

Before long she had become quite a celebrity – noticed at the Great Exhibition, taking tea with the Lord Mayor, interviewed by the Illustrated London News, modelled by a famous sculptor, having a song and a polka named after her… and even greeting the Queen.