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| Cornish Family History: slaves and shipwrecks |
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Bob Richards uncovers a fascinating tale of slaves and shipwrecks revealing the most unlikely avenues that can open up when researching one's family history. Exactly 200 years ago, on March 25, 1807, a Bill was passed through Parliament abolishing the slave trade in British Colonies. Throughout the 18th century and even before that, Britain had been at the forefront of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Perhaps not a part of our colonial history which we now look back on with a great deal of pride and passion but, at the time, Britain needed vast numbers of workers for its ever increasing plantations in the Caribbean and in mainland America, and vast fortunes were made by many as a result of this dreadful trade in human life.  Flushing as it is today.
Sugar and cotton were the main commodities grown on vast estates and these products helped to fuel the industrial revolution, which itself led to stories of almost slave-like factory conditions for the workers, whilst the owners got very rich. Now that may be a bit of a harsh generalisation of life in Britain at the time but it is a fact often reflected in the grandeur of the country estates owned and maintained by the wealthy few. It also made many of our ports, like Bristol, London and Liverpool in particular, very rich and was a trade that had an effect on Cornwall. I was doing a research project a while ago and, quite by chance, came across an ongoing item in the local press concerning a ship that had been forced into St Ives Bay by the weather. The authorities in St Ives were reluctant to provision the ship as it was thought to be carrying slaves. It caused quite a dilemma for them. Here were crew and ‘cargo’ quite obviously exhausted by their trials at the hands of the weather and low on provisions, a need with which, under normal circumstances, the good folk of St Ives would have gladly helped out. However, when rumour spread that the ‘cargo’ included several slaves, the authorities view was that to provision such a ship would be tantamount to accepting the validity of the slave trade, which they were reluctant to do. Other such incidents are to be found down the years in the annals of Cornish history, many freed or even fugitive slaves and their descendants found themselves here in Cornwall, often working as crew on ships which, until recently, had quite possibly been engaged in carrying their forefathers to a life of misery and slavery in the Americas. Many made their homes here in Cornwall and became part of Cornish society. I recall reading some time ago about one particular freed slave who became an accomplished musician and travelled around west Cornwall giving violin recitals to the gentry of the time. He was considered quite a “novelty” and also a bit of a dandy because of his style of dress. Often these freed slaves had no idea of their age or even a proper name. One such man became known as Peter Truro. He was baptised on October 3, 1777, in St Mary’s Church, Truro (later to become Truro Cathedral). His baptism entry simply reads: Peter Truro a Black was baptised 3rd October. Exactly how old he was and whether Peter was a name he knew from a former life, or whether it was given to him by the good folk of the church, we are not told. The Truro part was added, presumably as that just happened to be the place where he was baptised. Many entries are to be found in baptism registers which simply say ‘a Black’ or ‘Blackamoor’, particularly in some of our coastal and port parishes such as Truro, Falmouth and around Penzance. Often these men took employment locally and, in time, married into the local community. Peter Truro was no exception. He was a marine, as is confirmed by his marriage on October 12, 1783, to Catherine, daughter of Anthony and Grace Richards of the parish of Perranarworthal. Peter and Catherine had several children: Peter, William and Kitty who both died as infants, Mary, another William, Anthony and another Kitty. Exactly where Peter Truro came from is not clear. One theory I have heard is that he was the kidnapped son of Indian Royalty of the time, brought here for some sort of ransom, but I doubt this is true. Exactly where he ended his days is also a bit of a mystery. It seems likely that he was one of many who simply disappeared at sea, for he is not to be found in any subsequent burial register or other record that I can find. His family however lived on here in Cornwall. His son, William, married Mary Hendra and they had eight children before William’s death, in 1836, at the age of 45 years. His widow, Mary, is shown on the 1841 census as an innkeeper in the village of Flushing. The inn was the Seven Stars Inn and took in lodgers, mainly seamen ashore between voyages. Two of her daughters married two of the lodgers shown on this 1841 census; one of her sons was also in the shipping trade, whilst another was a shoemaker. Another daughter married into the Warren family and moved to Newlyn and, over the next generation, family members spread far and wide across the world, some ending up in California. Links to the Warren and Richards families have left distant cousins of this line still here in Cornwall today. Most of the first and second generations of the original Truro family are to be found in the Churchyard at Mylor, which served as the parish church for the Flushing area at the time. As has been said, Peter Truro seems to have disappeared at sea and this is another fate often found in entries of burial in our parish registers. ‘A man, found drowned’ is a common entry. Others are even more tragic, with many poor drowned souls buried in one mass grave following a shipwreck. Just a few weeks ago, we were reading here in Cornwall of the dramatic rescue of 26 seamen from a stricken cargo vessel in the British Channel by the brave men and rescue helicopters of RNAS Culdrose, who plucked them to safety from their life raft when their vessel began taking in water in mountainous seas. No such heroic rescues in the days of sail. To be holed at sea meant almost certain drowning. To be dashed ashore in a storm was also a terrible fate, but one such tragedy was to have a beneficial effect on tens of thousands of seafarers who suffered the same fate in later years. It was again 200 years ago this year, at Christmas 1807, that HMS Anson was wrecked on Loe Bar. One hundred men were drowned and the good people of the area were helpless to assist. One man watching these terrible events unfold was Henry Trengrouse of Helston, and the subsequent invention of his rocket apparatus for sending a lifeline from ship to shore in the event of a wreck was to save countless lives. Trengrouse himself made almost nothing out of the invention, save for £50 given by the Government and a personal letter of gratitude and a diamond ring from Czar Alexander of Russia. I am sure that Henry’s real reward was knowing that he had saved countless lives of shipwrecked seafarers. However, for the many for whom tragedy struck miles out of reach of any rocket apparatus or any hope of rescue by the gallantry of early lifeboat crews, there was little hope of being saved. One such man was Lawrence Sykes. Originally from Knotingley in Yorkshire, Lawrence was a mariner who married into the Moyses family. They were originally fishermen out of Newquay whose ancestry in that area goes back many generations. The family had crossed over to Par where subsequent generations were involved in the coastal shipping trade. Lawrence married Ada Moyses on November 10, 1909, but sadly, exactly one year after this happy event, tragedy struck. Lawrence and his crew of five, all from around the Par and Fowey area, were on a return voyage from Liverpool with a cargo of coal in their vessel Ruby when the ship was lost in bad weather. The last sighting was off the Welsh coast by a sister ship which made it back to Cornwall. The Ruby was posted as missing at Lloyds of London but her exact fate remains a mystery. Suffice to say that the West Briton of November 14, 1910, under the heading: ‘Gruesome find at Porthtowan’ gives a graphic account of two bodies washed ashore - one just a torso, and both in an advanced state of decomposition. An inquest was convened and, on the orders of the Coroner, the bodies were interred in St Agnes Public Cemetery that same day. The ledger of the St Agnes Clerk, responsible for keeping the accounts of the burial ground, states that the burial of the then unknown bodies of the two men cost the parish sixpence. The only potential identifying feature of either was a gold watch found on one of the bodies. It was some three weeks later that this was identified by Ada as belonging to her husband. On the instructions of the coroner, the death certificate was amended from ‘unknown’ to ‘Lawrence Sykes, 41, Master Mariner’. Sadly the identity of the other body will never be known. The fate of the slave, taken from family in Africa never to be seen again, and the fate of the mariner, like Peter Truro or Lawrence Sykes, waving goodbye from some small Cornish harbour never to return, is one which may seem worlds apart in some ways, but, in others, there is a common and tragic theme. It is possible in this day and age to piece together the evidence as best we can from a host of available records, and to come to some conclusions over their lives and times and, indeed, their eventual fate - but there will always be little gaps or blanks in our knowledge of some members of our extended families. It has to be an accepted part of family history research that we may never find all the answers, but I know some folk who spend a long time looking… and it is still fun trying to find out and learning a little more along the way about historical events, even those like the slave trade, which have in some way helped shape our own lives and our own generation. Bob Richards Cornwall Family Finders bobr.stkilda@dsl.pipex.com |