No relief in Helston. Little in Penzance. Matters get ugly when 3,000 starving people arrive in Pool. Part three of The Cornish Food Riots of 1847…
Author Archives: TheCornishHistorian
Rise of the Miners: The Food Riots of 1847, Part Two
Things are getting worse. The miners get organised. The miners march for food – and the authorities react…
The Cornish Food Riots of 1847: Background and Context
The people are hungry! The miners are rising! A series of five posts on the food riots that erupted in Cornwall throughout the spring and summer of 1847. No town was safe from the starving thousands, and violence regularly broke out…
The Notorious Beatrice Small, Fortune Teller
Beatrice Small made her living telling the fortunes of the gullible folk living in the border country of North Cornwall. Her fanciful tales of spells and hidden fortunes found many willing ears, and she regularly ran foul of the law…
Sister Helen and Saint Barnabas
Sister Helen Phillipps-Treby was Head Nurse and General Manager of St Barnabas Hospital, Saltash, from 1896 to 1951. The span of her career covered some momentous changes in nursing and society, and the way nursing was viewed by this rapidly changing society. The story of Sister Helen is also the story of the early years of St Barnabas Hospital…
In Search of An Gof, Conclusion: An Gof Today?
What of extreme Cornish Nationalist groups and their activities today?
In Search of An Gof, part three: The Two An Gofs
The historic An Gof and the group known as ‘An Gof’: does the use of his name by the 1980s extremists corrupt An Gof’s memory, or are the two ‘An Gofs’ more alike than mainstream pro-Cornish activists would like to admit?
In Search of An Gof, part two: Person or Persons Unknown
The extremist activities of the 1980s ‘An Gof’ group laid bare and analysed…
In Search of An Gof: Cornish Extremism, 1980-1990, and Beyond
A controversial series of four posts from November 2021. What was the story behind the alleged attacks of the ‘An Gof’ group in the 1980s? Why do Cornish nationalists get offended at the perceived tarnishing of the historical An Gof by the group’s use of his name? Is An Gof’s reputation as a Cornish martyr justified? Is there a version of ‘An Gof’ today?
War and Emigration: The Family Tree
My own early forays into genealogical research…legends are debunked, myths shattered, and tragedy is uncovered…
Francis Edwards ~ The Cornish Historian 