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Prince Albert, the husband of Queen Victoria, was interested in museums and educating people. He planned the Great Exhibition with Sir Henry Cole and Joseph Paxton. Fourteen thousand people from all over the world exhibited wonderful things at the exhibition. Some of these things came by boat from Penzance. There was an obelisk made of granite from the quarry at Lamorna and objects made from serpentine stone. There were two obelisks (11ft high), a mantelpiece, columns with vases on top, chess tables, and many other things. Mary Kelynack may have seen these things in Penzance and decided she would like to go to the exhibition in London.
I went to the Morrab Library in Penzance where I was able to see books about the Great Exhibition and a great paper called the Illustrated London News. This was a large book with all the newspapers for six months in it, I looked at July to December 1851. In those days a tax was charged on newspapers so poor people could not afford to buy them. The Illustrated London News cost one shilling (5p), which was a lot of money in 1851. All of the pictures were drawings not photographs.
Mary Kelynack was an old lady, she was 84 years old. She wanted to go to the exhibition but she lived in Newlyn and London was 300 miles away. The railway did not go all the way from Penzance to London then, there were boats but the cheapest fare was fifteen shillings (75p) and Mary could not afford that. She could have gone part way by coach and then by train but she could not afford the fares, so she decided to walk.
Although she was old she was very strong because she was a fish seller and used to carrying a big basket of fish on her back and walking many miles carrying it. Her husband was dead and there were no old age pensions in Victorian days so she had to work. It took Mary five weeks to walk to London and I expect that people on the way gave her food and shelter. Because she was old and had walked so far she was an important person in London and was written about in the newspapers. What was written about in the London papers was put into papers in Cornwall and I have got a piece from one of the papers for my journal (Cornish Telegraph for 26th September 1851).
When Mary Kelynack arrived in London she went to the Great Exhibition and met the Lord Mayor who gave her a present, it was a sovereign, telling her to take care of it because many thieves lived in London. Mary burst into tears receiving the present. The Queen wrote a diary which is published and in it she wrote ‘The old Cornishwoman who walked several hundred miles was at the door to see me, a most pale old woman who was near to crying at my looking at her’.
Having visited the Exhibition Mary’s favourite part was the French section. Travelling to Exeter by train Mary returned to Cornwall in mid November. While she was in London she got a letter from a Mr. Proctor offering her a seat inside the coach from Exeter to Truro, free of charge. In those days there were no trains from Exeter to Penzance. Mary had lots of stories of her adventures to tell everyone in Newlyn when she came home.
Teri-Rose Johns lives in Newlyn and wrote the above in her last year at Alverton Junior School, as part of a project on Victorian times. She decided to write about ‘Famous Victorians in Cornwall ‘ and chose Mary Kelynack as one of them. Although she was only famous for a short while in other parts of the country, Mary will always be remembered in Newlyn. Teri-Rose is now a pupil at Humphry Davy School.
Teri-Rose Johns (10 yrs)
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