Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures, Maps and Tables
- Dedication
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: A Reputation for Wrecking
- 1 Cornwall and the Sea
- 2 ‘Dead Wrecks’ and the Foundation of Wreck Law
- 3 Wrecking and Criminality
- 4 The Cornish Wrecker
- 5 Wrecking and Popular Morality
- 6 Wrecking and Enforcement of the Law
- 7 Lords of the Manor and their Right of Wreck
- 8 Wrecking and Centralised Authority
- 9 The Wrecker, the Press, and the Pulpit
- Conclusion: Myths and Reputations Reconsidered
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - The Cornish Wrecker
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 April 2017
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures, Maps and Tables
- Dedication
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Introduction: A Reputation for Wrecking
- 1 Cornwall and the Sea
- 2 ‘Dead Wrecks’ and the Foundation of Wreck Law
- 3 Wrecking and Criminality
- 4 The Cornish Wrecker
- 5 Wrecking and Popular Morality
- 6 Wrecking and Enforcement of the Law
- 7 Lords of the Manor and their Right of Wreck
- 8 Wrecking and Centralised Authority
- 9 The Wrecker, the Press, and the Pulpit
- Conclusion: Myths and Reputations Reconsidered
- Appendices
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
let's all start fair!
In 1907, Henry Shore, a retired Royal Navy commander who had served in Fowey with the Coastguard, published a collection of stories after he had interviewed the locals about smuggling. In Shore's fictional ‘society’, created, he said, to protect their identity, the men huddled together over their pints to reminisce about smuggling in the ‘old days’. Wherever there are tales of smuggling, there are tales of wrecking, and thus the story is told:
I mind when I was a bit of a nipper, mother used to teach us hymns of a Sunday afternoon. But the one I remember best was one old dad taught us, as we sat on his knee, 'twas about a passon up Padstow way, time wrecking was allowed back-along. Well, one Sunday morning – leastaways that's what old dad used to say, a ship got on to the Gull Rock while the folk was at church, and old Ephraim Blowey – that was the sexton, having been bred to the sea, always kept his weather eye liftin’ seawards, and twigged it in a moment, and shouts, ‘Wreck!’ and the congregation was on their feet in a jiffy. But the passon, being a conscientious man and werry [sic] strict about doing things right and proper, was all for fairplay –
Stop! Stop! cried he, at least one prayer,
Let me get down, and all start fair.
I did hear that was one of Wesley's favourites.
The ‘parson story’ has to be one of the most common tales found in the anthology of wrecking outside of the false-light narratives; it is ubiquitous in popular histories of Cornish shipwrecks. The earliest version thus far discovered is in James Silk Buckingham's autobiography, published in 1855, where he was told the story during a visit to St Mary's, Isles of Scilly. He was informed it was true, ‘occurring less than fifty years ago’. It is almost certain that the genesis of the tale is of an earlier provenance, but it is unknown where it may have originated. It is narrated, like many tales, as a true story, unique to the location of the teller. However, it is in fact a migratory tale. Versions are found from Padstow and Germoe in Cornwall to the Isles of Scilly to Pembrokeshire in Wales, and undoubtedly in many other places besides.
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- Information
- Cornish Wrecking, 1700–1860Reality and Popular Myth, pp. 82 - 103Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2010