Chapter 1

AND STRANGE EVENTS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME

DEVONSHIRE CHARACTERS
AND STRANGE EVENTS

With 55 Full-page Illustrations
Reproduced from Old Prints, etc.

CORNISH
CHARACTERS

AND STRANGE EVENTS

BY S. BARING-GOULD, M.A.

WITH 62 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
REPRODUCED FROM OLD PRINTS, ETC.

“We all are men,
In our own natures frail, and capable
Of our flesh; few are angels.”
HENRY VIII (Act V, Sc. 2).

LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY MCMIX

PLYMOUTH: WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD., PRINTERS

PREFACE

Cornwall, peopled mainly by Celts, but with an infusion of English
blood, stands and always has stood apart from the rest of England,
much, but in a less degree, as has Wales. That which brought it into
more intimate association with English thought, interests, and
progress was the loss of the old Cornish tongue.

The isolation in which Cornwall had stood has tended to develop in it
much originality of character; and the wildness of the coast has bred
a hardy race of seamen and smugglers; the mineral wealth, moreover,
drew thousands of men underground, and the underground life of the
mines has a peculiar effect on mind and character: it is cramping in
many ways, but it tends to develop a good deal of religious
enthusiasm, that occasionally breaks forth in wild forms of
fanaticism. Cornwall has produced admirable sailors, men who have won
deathless renown in warfare at sea, as “Old Dreadnought” Boscawen,
Pellew, Lord Exmouth, etc., and daring and adventurous smugglers, like
“The King of Prussia,” who combined great religious fervour with
entire absence of scruple in the matter of defrauding the king’s
revenue. It has produced men of science who have made for themselves a
world-fame, as Adams the astronomer, and Sir Humphry Davy the
chemist; men who have been benefactors to their race, as Henry
Trengrouse, Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, and Trevithick. It has sent forth
at least one notable painter, the miner’s boy Opie, and a dramatist,
Samuel Foote, and a great singer in his day, Incledon. But it has not
given to literature a great poet. Minor rhymes have been produced in
great quantities, but none of great worth. Philosophers have issued
from the mines, as Samuel Drew, eccentrics many, as Sir James Tillie,
John Knill, and Daniel Gumb. And Cornwall has contributed a certain
number of rascals–but fewer in number than almost any other county,
if we exclude wreckers and smugglers from the catalogue of rascality.

Strange superstitions have lingered on, and one very curious story of
a girl fed for years by fairies has been put on record.

It is somewhat remarkable that Cornwall has produced no musical genius
of any note; and yet the Cornishman is akin to the Welshman and the
Irishman.

Cornwall has certainly sent up to London and Westminster very able
politicians, as Godolphin, Sir William Molesworth, and Sir John Eliot.
It furnished Tyburn with a victim–Hugh Peters, the chaplain of Oliver
Cromwell, a strange mixture of money-grasping, enthusiasm, and humour.

It has been the object of the author, not to retell the lives of the
greatest of the sons of Cornwall, for these lives may be read in the
_Dictionary of National Biography_, but to chronicle the stories of
lesser luminaries concerning whom less is known and little is easily
accessible. In this way it serves as a companion volume to
_Devonshire Characters_; and Cornwall in no particular falls short of
Devonshire in the variety of characters it has sent forth, nor are
their stories of less interest.

The author and publisher have to thank many for kind help: Mr. Percy
Bate, Mr. T. R. Bolitho, Rev. A. T. Boscawen, Mr. J. A. Bridger, Mr.
T. Walter Brimacombe, Mr. A. M. Broadley, Mr. R. P. Chope, Mr. Digby
Collins, Mr. J. B. Cornish, Mrs. Coryton of Pentillie Castle, Miss
Loveday E. Drake, Mr. E. H. W. Dunkin, F.S.A., Mr. J. D. Enys of Enys,
the Rev. Wm. Iago, Mrs. H. Forbes Julian, Mrs. de Lacy Lacy, the Rev.
A. H. Malan, Mr. Lewis Melville, Mr. A. H. Norway, Captain Rogers of
Penrose, Mr. Thomas Seccombe, Mr. Henry Trengrouse, Mr. W. H. K.
Wright, and Mr. Henry Young of Liverpool–and last, but not least,
Miss Windeatt Roberts for her admirable Index to the volume.

The publisher wishes me to say that he would much like to discover the
whereabouts of a full-length portrait of Sir John Call, with a view of
Bodmin Gaol in the background.

S. BARING-GOULD.

CONTENTS

PAGE

WILLIAM PENGELLY, GEOLOGIST 1

SIR CHARLES WILLS, K.B. 12

LIEUTENANT GOLDSMITH AND THE LOGAN ROCK 18

HUGH PETERS, THE REGICIDE 26

JAMES POLKINGHORNE, THE WRESTLER 54

HENRY TRENGROUSE, INVENTOR 59

THE BOTATHAN GHOST 72

JOHN COUCH ADAMS, ASTRONOMER 83

DANIEL GUMB 91

LAURENCE BRADDON 96

THOMASINE BONAVENTURA 108

THE MURDER OF NEVILL NORWAY 117

SIR WILLIAM LOWER, KNT. 126

THE PIRATES AT PENZANCE 130

DAME KILLIGREW 133

TWO NATURALISTS IN CORNWALL 141
John Ralfs
George Carter Bignell

SIR JOHN CALL, BART. 154

JOHN KNILL 169

THOMAS TREGOSS 176