In Newlyn: Before The Artists Came, co-authors Pamela Lomax and Ron Hogg explain that its name was first recorded – variously as Nulyn, Lulyii, and Lulyn juxta Talcarne – in the late 13th century.
A couple of centuries later John Leland described it as being "a poore fishar towne and hath only a key for shippes and bootes with a lytle socur of land water".
Not long after his visit, in 1595, it fell foul of Spanish invaders and, along with Mousehole and Penzance, was put to the torch. The invasion caused the death of three people, one of them a Newlyn man. Records state that "Jacobus de Newlyn occisus fuit per inimicos et sepultus est 26 die Julii (James of Newlyn was killed by the enemies and buried on July 26)". While Newlyn probably did not take long to burn, as the few houses in its three distinct settlements, Newlyn Town, Street-an-Nowan and Tolcarne, would have been thatch-roofed, it marked the start of its first regeneration.
However, rather like that of today, it was a slow process and by the middle of the 18th century, although it could boast a population of some two thousand – with almost all of them involved in fishing and curing pilchards – it was also "the most stinking place in ye whole world" and was to remain so for a very long time.
It was not until the 19th century, with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, that things began to change, though not always for the better. In 1832, William Williams wrote in his diary: "Our village of Newlyn was visited with a dreadful distemper called the cholera morbis, which carried off above 100 souls. On Paul Feast Day no less than six were interred."
But there were happier moments. May 8, 1800, for instance, saw the birth in Newlyn of William Lovett, who would gain fame as author of The People's Charter. Then too, there was the opening in 1851 of the Wheal Elizabeth "on the summit of Paul Hill near Newlyn". In the same year there was Mary Kelynack's celebrated walk to London to see the Great Exhibition, plus the coming of steam a year later, courtesy of the West Cornwall Railway.
Lomax and Hogg, writing with great effect, cover a multitude of subjects, from the important part played by John Wesley after the loss of the fishing boat Jane with all hands in 1880 to the life and times of Jan Stone. They also describe the insularity and independence of the three settlements that made up, and for those of a certain age still do make up, Newlyn.
Daringly, the authors have chosen to tell much of the story through the eyes of Caroline Burland Yates, who came to Newlyn in 1879 and who would later marry the artist Thomas Cooper Gotch and live at Wheal Betsy where, coincidentally, the Pamela Lomax and Ron Hogg themselves now live. While the resultant mix of fiction and fact may bother the purist historian, it is a ploy which works extremely well and helps bring the pages of the book to life.
For telling the story of Newlyn and its people from its early days to 1950, the co-authors are to be praised for their courage, enterprise and sheer hard work; the amount of research alone must have been colossal. Published in hardback and handsomely illustrated, it is a book to be cherished by all "buccas" (Newlyners) in particular and by anyone with an interest in Cornwall in general.
Royalties are being donated to the Morrab Library in Penzance – where the book was launched at the weekend – in aid of its photographic archive. The authors presented the library with the first cheque for £800 on Saturday.
Newlyn: Before The Artists Came by Pamela Lomax and Ron Hogg is published by Shears and Hogg Publications at £25. It is available from Morrab Library, Penlee House Gallery & Museum, Penzance, or direct from Wheal Betsy, Chywoone Hill, Newlyn, Penzance, TR18 5AP (cheque payable to Ron Hogg).
article copyright THE CORNISHMAN