Click the smaller image above to download as a pdf for printing or reading offline
St Ives Old Cornwall Society is now 100 years old and is the founding Society in the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies. At the recent celebratory meeting for Federation members the Chairman, Brian Stevens, returned a manuscript to Trevor Smitheram, the Chairman and President of the Hayle Old Cornwall Society. The manuscript had been borrowed from Hayle Old Cornwall by R. J. Noall in 1930.
November 2019 - Argall Photographers 1865 - 1913
The society’s November meeting saw a full house welcomed by the society’s president, Margaret Stevens.
Presenter for the evening was Frank Argall, whose family’s photographic company was founded in 1865 by his great grandfather Frederick. In 1871 Frank’s grandfather took over the company.
With photography still in its infancy much use was made of palladium and nitrate for the plates. Young women wanting to impress a prospective sweetheart could insert a miniature photo unobtrusively into a pocket, and many portraits were taken.
There were extensive views of Cornwall produced as postcards. Frank’s slides showed many Cornish towns of the period. A street in Camborne could be seen with the Wesley chapel nearby, while opposite, a tram was dealing with passengers; the street was busy with shoppers and boys on bikes.
At Banns, near Porthtowan, shoppers were pictured outside Bann’s shop in what seemed to be an arranged photo. In Truro the Cathedral was highlighted, as was the busy river area.
In Newlyn, a fine sailing vessel the ‘Jenny Lind’, owned by the Downing family, headed for the fishing grounds: the boat and its punt were named for the famous Swedish soprano; did she visit Cornwall during a tour perhaps? Further investigation could reveal the answer.
Frank’s slides showed scenes of many more towns and curiosities in Cornwall, even as far as the Tamar where the construction of Brunel’s Royal Albert Bridge was under way during 1857/58. It is impossible to record the variation of Argall Photographs and side-lines which were well advertised from its offices in Truro and in Plymouth. Such scenes from the 19th century are rare, and Frank has cherished them since the company closed in 1965, giving his time to share them with Cornish groups whenever requested. This was a fascinating presentation and much appreciated by his audience, none of whom moved a muscle!
![St Ives OCS - Frank Argall talk [1]](https://kernowgoth.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Frank-Argall-1.jpg "Frank Argall [1]")
![St Ives OCS - Frank Argall talk [2]](https://kernowgoth.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Frank-Argall-2.jpg "Frank Argall [2]")
![St Ives OCS - Frank Argall talk [3]](https://kernowgoth.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Frank-Argall-3.jpg "Frank Argall [3]")
October 2019 - Alan Cox - ‘Cornish Curiosities’
The society’s October meeting was well attended in spite of rough weather. President Margaret welcomed everyone, after which Trelawny was sung. Notice of future events were given, including The Federation Winter Festival to be held at Torpoint on Saturday November 23rd. Local carols can be practised in Fore Street Sunday School on Sunday afternoons during November to prepare for choir engagements in December, including a visit to our society on December 16th. The choir will also be present with the congregation at a carol service in 2020 at Truro cathedral as part of the 100th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the OCS movement which began here in St Ives.
Speaker for the evening was Alan Cox of Falmouth, whose subject was ‘Cornish Curiosities’ shown in slides. Alan’s main focus was on Cornish churches and follies. Plymstock church with its colourful indoor high upstanding panels was furthest north. The show started with slides of Boscastle before and after the flood that devastated the lower part of the town during a violent thunderstorm in August 16th 2004 . Then the small church at St.Hilary, famous not only for its colourful wall paintings, but for one of its vicars, the controversial Bernard Walke, who during his 20 years ministry, wrote a biography and also a religious play in Cornish. There were many other churches shown by Alan, such as the ancient Phillack church on Hayle dunes and Zennor, home of the Mermaid carving. There were slides of the men-an-tol stone through which children were passed to cure their ailments, Kynance Cove where serpentine was mined and Scorrier where titanium was obtained. Most interesting was a curiosity at Nare Head where a small unobtrusive underground bunker, accessed by means of a ladder through what looked like a large metal box, played its part during the last war as a secret listening station.
It is impossible to name all the slides shown, but Alan’s talk introduced us to many places which were unfamiliar and maybe worthy of more visitors in future.
Trevor Smitheram , President of Hayle Old Cornwall, – Hayle and its Heritage.
Trevor’s knowledge of his subject is extensive, delivered without notes, and with slides on screen. This became a tour of Hayle, famous for its engineering projects. The first bridge over a railway taking travellers to Truro from Penzance, built in 1857 by Brunel, saw the viaduct erected in 1888, bringing prosperity because of its passage through Hayle carrying manufactured goods from various engineering companies and others. Engineers Harvey’s supplied ship’s engines and shipwrights, built the first rail car in 1804 and the largest ship, the ‘Ramsey’ in 1891: its Foundry is preserved by English Heritage opposite the White Hart inn, which is still recognisable in Foundry Square; much of its history can be found at the Heritage Centre there.
Many slides made for a comprehensive tour of the town, where some streets and buildings can still be identified, such as the White Hart, originally purchased for Trevithick’s wife Jane as a home in 1838, while Richard, with Harvey’s, worked on his rail and road steam locomotives that eventually travelled on rails. One early demonstration on Camborne’s Beacon Hill gave rise to the often sung ‘Going up Camborne Hill’, the locomotive being christened a ‘puffing devil’. Familiar names appeared, such as Harvey’s engineering works that built the first rail car in 1804, and was where Richard Trevithick worked on his locomotive but which often also took him away. J.&.F Pool Ltd , [closed in 2004] was an engineering works that had taken over the Cornish Copper Company which manufactured small household items such as fire irons, clocks and much more . In Foundry Square, workshops were available in what became a Wesley preaching chapel in 1845, [closing in 1967] while slides showed streets that can still be recognised.
Here in 1898 could be found the Cornubia Biscuit works while Boilers Brewery was nearby. The road running past the Heritage Foundry leads to St. Michael’s hospital, where an order of nuns practised medicine in former years. Houses facing west on Carnsew Road still stand, previously usually occupied by prosperous families; fortunately the town had its own Electric Works as well as a theatre and cinema, both long closed.
There is no doubt that the town played an important part in both World Wars. During the 1914-1918 war, the Navy used the sand dunes to hide a dynamite factory that supplied cordite but also stored large amounts of nitro-glycerine. Unfortunately, two tons of this self-detonated in 1916, killing five people, two of them women. It has been reported that windows were broken and the blast heard as far as St.Ives and Penzance, a sad time for the town, which also made munitions, mainly by women, in various locations. Hayle was important during the Second World War, where invasion barges were constructed on the ‘spit’, then transferred to Plymouth.
There was much more detail in this talk as Trevor provided dates, which added to the understanding of times past. This was an interesting talk, enjoyed by everyone as Trevor was a clear speaker who captured his audience.
