List of Titles

(scroll down for more information)

Cornish Smuggling by Dr Jo Esra

Tintagel and the Pictureque Ideal by Victoria Jenner

Cousin Jacks and Cockneys by Dr Leslie Trotter

Road, Rocks and Rain by Dr Peter Forsaith

Cornish Flavoured Witchcraft by Dr Amy Hale

Mary Broad: documentary or drama? by Dr Charlotte MacKenzie

Singin’ Miners by Dr Kate Neale

The Irish Trelawny by Dr Garry Tregidga
Embed videos and playlists

On a computer, go to the YouTube video or playlist that you want to embed.
Click SHARE .
From the list of Share options, click Embed.
From the box that appears, copy the HTML code.
Paste the code into your website HTML
A Tragedy of the Cornish Coast by Bob Keys

Bugle Brass Band Contest – A Proper Cornish Event by Tony Mansell

Folk Tradition and the Old Cornwall Societies by Dr Merv Davey

The Flight of the Hawkes by Ben Dobson

A Cornishman’s Adventure by Dr Lamorna Spry

Global Kernow by Dr Charlotte Mackenzie

 

 

28 April 2024

Cornish Smuggling

 

Organised Crime or Radical Romance

The Free Trade during the 18th and 19th century

By Dr Jo Esra, Exeter University of Exeter

NO RECORDING FOUND


7 May 2022

Tintagel and the picturesque ideal

Exploring identity and the rise of domestic tourism

By Victoria Jenner

Victoria’s talk will micro-analyses how a well-known tourist destination in Cornwall can be understood as a product of travel literature during the rising popularity of the Picturesque movement. She uses this study to gain further insight into the ‘travelling’ mentality that not only exploited Tintagel’s maritime identity, but usurped it as part of the ‘British Grand Tour’.

Following a Master’s Degree in eighteenth-century British and French Decorative Arts, Victoria Jenner has specialised in nineteenth-century collections with the National Trust. During this time, she has worked as a digital curator for Waddesdon Manor, a Rothschild House and Garden in Buckinghamshire, P&D Colnaghi, a historic dealers in London and currently for the Bodleian Libraries in Oxford.

Victoria’s mentorship role within the Cornwall’s Maritime Churches project (2018 – 2021), brought together her passion for digital engagement as well as her interest in the nineteenth century as a period of social change that dramatically impacted the architecture, design and identities of churches across Cornwall. Her talk here micro-analyses how a well-known tourist destination in Cornwall can be understood as a product of travel literature during the rising popularity of the Picturesque movement. She uses this study to gain further insight into the ‘travelling’ mentality that not only exploited Tintagel’s maritime identity, but usurped it as part of the ‘British Grand Tour’.

(Photo credit: IDS.photos)


2 April 2022

Cousin Jacks and Cockneys

 

By Dr Lesley Trotter, Hon. Research Fellow,, Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter

                                                                                             

Dr Lesley Trotter will be exploring the research on forgotten migration streams of Cornish Cousin Jacks and Jennies to London.

The migration of the Cornish, Cousin Jacks and Jennies, around the world in the 19th century has been well documented. But Cornish historians have also begun to examine the forgotten migration streams of Cornish people to other parts of the UK including London. Less well researched is the migration of Londoners, generically known as Cockneys, to Cornwall. Using her whole population database for Cornwall and drawing on contemporary census reports and newspapers, Lesley will discuss the extent 19th century cross migration between Cornwall and London, and consider how the migrants were viewed when they arrived.


12 March 2022

Road, Rocks and Rain

 

By Dr Peter Forsaith

Click here to view the presentation on YouTube

John Wesley, following his brother Charles, made the first of many visits to Cornwall in 1743, after initial evangelistic forays by some Methodist sailors from Bristol. Cornwall then was remote, isolated and wild: John Wesley wrote of crossing the ‘great pathless moor beyond Launceston’ and received a rough reception at St. Ives. However, he wrote descriptively and sympathetically about Cornwall and its people in his published Journal. At the end of his last visit, in August 1789, he commented, ‘…there is a fair prospect in Cornwall, from Launceston to the Land’s End.

In this talk Peter will look at John Wesley’s Journal not as religious narrative (as it was intended) but as travel writing – particularly about Cornwall – since Wesley described much of what he saw, and how it was changing in his lifetime.

 

Dr. Peter Forsaith F.R.Hist.S. is a historian of religion, culture and society in eighteenth-century England and is Research Fellow of the Oxford Centre for Methodism and Church History at Oxford Brookes University. He has cared for Methodist-related art and archival collections, researched (among other areas) the interface between art and religion, particularly eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British art and Methodism and published Image, identity and John Wesley; a study in portraiture (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018).


5 February 2022

Cornish Flavoured Witchcraft

 

By Dr Amy Hale

Dr. Amy Hale is an Atlanta-based anthropologist and folklorist writing about esoteric history, art, culture, women and Cornwall. Co-edited collections include New Directions in Celtic Studies, and The Journal of the Academic Study of Magic 5. She is the editor of the forthcoming Essays on Women in Western Esotericism: Beyond Seeresses and Sea Priestesses (Palgrave Macmillan) and her biography of surrealist and occultist Ithell Colquhoun Genius of the Fern Loved Gully is published by Strange Attractor Press.

8 January 2022

Mary Broad: documentary or drama?

An exploration of Mary Broad and the historical evidence surrounding her well-known story.

 

By Dr Charlotte MacKenzie

The well known story of Mary Broad or Bryant has been the subject of biographies, fiction, and film. Whilst these tend to focus on her daring 69 day voyage in an open boat from New South Wales to Timor, new research uncovers Mary Broad’s origins as a Cornish woodman’s daughter, reconsidering the evidence related to her ‘highway robbery’, transportation, and escape. Revealing Mary Broad’s legacy and the impacts on two of her Fowey relations: the London Society missionaries James and William Puckey who left Cornwall for Tahiti, New South Wales, and New Zealand.


11 December 2021

Singin’ Miners

 

By Dr Kate Neale

TO BE UPLOADED

Kate Neale talks about the tradition of Cornish Christmas carols, and how these seasonal community celebrations travelled to the diaspora with migrating miners during the 19th century.

Born and raised in Cornwall, Kate Neale studied English and Music at Cardiff University before specialising in ethnomusicology – the study of music within cultures and communities. Seeing music at the heart of community traditions such as the Padstow carols, and fascinated by the transfer of such traditions with migrating Cornish miners, she pursued a PhD focusing on Cornish Christmas carolling in California and South Australia, which was co-supervised between Cardiff University and the University of Exeter. She returned to Cornwall in 2018 where she completed her studies, and now works in communications and on a range of voluntary projects.


7 August 2021

The Irish Trelawny

 

By Dr Garry Tregidga

TO BE UPLOADED

Garry Tregidga explores how the story of Trelawny came to be associated with the growing sectarian problems in Ireland during the late 19th

The Trelawny anthem has been closely associated with the popular culture of Cornwall since the nineteenth century. Even then it was commonly regarded as the Cornish national anthem and featured prominently in relation to a variety of settings ranging from election hustings to cultural events. This talk, however, explores how the story of Trelawny came to be associated with the growing sectarian problems in Ireland during the late nineteenth century and how a false version of its Cornish history was incorporated into Irish political narratives.


3 July 2021

A Tragedy of the Cornish Coast

 

By Bob Keys

TO BE UPLOADED

A family legend and a coincidence in the early history of British Cinema.
Bob Keys tells the story of the early twentieth century film, ‘A Tragedy of the Cornish Coast,’ the director Sidney Northcote and the connection to the Pengelly family of Portwrinkle.

5 June 2021

Bugle Brass Band Contest – A Proper Cornish Event

 

By Tony Mansell

Click here to view the presentation on YouTube

Tony Mansell tells the story of the Bugle Contest and its long history starting back in 1912.

The West of England Bandsmen’s Festival, affectionally known as Bugle Contest, first welcomed competing brass bands in 1912. But for Covid 19, last year would have been its 96th festival.

It is said to be the last such contest in Britain where bands compete in the open air on a stage with little protection from the elements. To the Cornish brass movement it is a “Mecca” as players and supporters gather from near and far for this very Cornish event.

May its long history stretch far into the future.


8 May 2021

Folk Tradition and the Old Cornwall Societies

 

By Dr Merv Davey

Click here to view the presentation on YouTube

Dr Merv Davey explores the work of the Old Cornwall Societies in recording, supporting, and reviving folk traditions.

Kernow Goth – the Old Cornwall movement were the driving force behind the Celto-Cornish revival in early 20th century Cornwall. Their interests and activities ranged from promoting the Cornish language to the preservation of ancient sites and their impact on folk tradition in Cornwall cannot be overstated. As well as recording them for posterity the societies put their shoulder behind customs that were at risk of dying out and revived those that had been all but forgotten. In this Cornish story live we will explore the work of the Old Cornwall Societies in recording, supporting, and reviving folk traditions so that they became part of the distinctive modern Cornish identity.

(This talk is based on the chapter of the same name in “A Uniquely Cornish Concept: the story of the ‘Old Cornwall’ movement 1920 -2020” to be published in Summer 2021.


6 March 2021

The Flight of the Hawkes

 

By Ben Dobson

Click here to view the presentation on YouTube

Ben Dobson tells the story of the Hawke family, and their journeys to Australia.


6 February 2021

A Cornishman’s Adventure

 

By Dr Lamorna Spry

TO BE UPLOADED

From the Newlyn Fishing Riots of 1896 to Vancouver Island and California. Join Dr Lamorna Spry as she tells the story of how one Cornishman ended up in California’s gold mines.


 

Global Kernow

Cornwall and the World in the eighteen century

 

By Dr Charlotte Mackenzie

Click here to view the presentation on YouTube