| Richard 'Wild Dick' Lawry |
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Page 1 of 4 Richard ‘Wild Dick’ Lawry In the far west of Cornwall is Lady Downs, half way between Zennor and Nancledra. It is but a dot on the map, said at one time to consist of two farms and an equal number of Methodist Chapels but it is an area with evidence of some of Cornwall’s earliest inhabitants. Chysauster, Castle an Dinas and Sperris Quoit are marked here along with numerous cairns, stone circles and ancient field systems. It is also a land of many legends, the Mermaid of Zennor probably being the best known. But our story is not of mermaids but of farmers and miners. One such family were William and Amelia Lawry. The 1841 census tells us that William lived with his wife and children Lydia, 15, Elizabeth, 11, John, 8, Mary, 6 and Emily aged just one year at Ridgoe in Gulval parish. William was an agricultural labourer. The family name of Lawry is one that can be found in the earliest parish registers, a quick search of records will find the name on a variety of documents going back hundreds of years. One particular record is the baptism in 1832 of John, son of William and Amelia of Ridga, as it is spelt here. John became a miner. He married a cousin, Honor Pengelly Lawry in Zennor Parish Church, and the 1861 census shows the family with children Mary, John and Richard, living at Lady Downs, Towednack.  Lady Downs as it is today. By the 1871 census the family have six sons, John, Richard, William and Thomas, who were twins, James and Andrew and one daughter, Mary, all now living at Mill Downs, Zennor. John the father is described as a ‘tin miner and farmer of five acres’. Mining was to lead to his premature death. He died of miner’s lung disease caused by years of inhaling dust underground. Sadly, two of his sons would also die of this terrible disease while mining in South Africa. One of John’s sons, Richard Lawry, got himself something of a reputation for getting into mischief and he earned himself the nickname of Wild Dick. It was possibly his love of boxing that got him the nickname; he was quite tall with a long reach and much suited to the sport. Soon Richard Lawry had fallen for a girl from Lelant called Elizabeth Ann Martin. She was a distant cousin through the Pengelly family line and was one of six children of Christopher and Elizabeth Martin. |
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