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| Cornishmen on the up |
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Page 1 of 4 Cornishmen on the up. One thing that pleases me is to receive some feedback that tells me that Jan the miner from lowly beginnings here in Cornwall made the most of his opportunities in his new life and left his mark on the new society that he joined. I have mentioned such folk before but there are many others worthy of mention and who have probably never been remembered in the way they should be back home here in Cornwall.  Take for example the story of Isaac Killicoat. Isaac was baptised on April 22, 1810, in the Parish Church of St Piran in the village of Perranarworthal, the son of Isaac and Susanna Killicoat. Isaac senior was a miner, originally from St Agnes and his wife was from a Tregony family. The name of Killicoat had been in the St Agnes area for as long as the oldest surviving parish registers and among the earliest baptisms there we find Elizabeth, 1654, John, 1657 and Charles, 1660, all children of Richard Kellicoate as it is spelt at the time. Isaac junior showed much academic promise. He was given lessons from his early years and became knowledgeable in a variety of subjects and in the skills of mining. It is likely that he attended one of a small number of private schools, often associated with local parish churches. By his late teenage years, Isaac Killicoat was beginning to make his mark as a mining man. He soon became surface captain of the great Tresavean Copper Mine in Gwennap parish and had more than 500 men under him. On June 6, 1833, he married Ann Rowe in the Church of St James in Tregony. The 1841 census of Perranarworthal parish shows the family with three children living at Rose Cottage, between Greenwith Common and Rissick. The house is still standing, although much improved and extended since the days of the Killicoat family. Soon after this census, Isaac’s father died. He was buried in the churchyard at Perranarworthal in1842. |
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