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Since 1921 the Bournemouth Cornish Association has
existed in order to draw together Cornish exiles in the Bournemouth
area. It seeks to promote friendship and provide opportunity to enjoy Cornish
culture in an alien environment. Highlights of the year include pasty
suppers, and the annual dinner. There are strong links with other Cornish
Associations and also with other local exile groups, especially the
Caledonian and Welsh.
The Association meets most months in the Moose Hall
in Charminster. See the Programme for more information. New members are
always most welcome so come on all you cousin Jacks and Jennys in Bournemouth, come and join us!
For details contact our membership
secretary, Mr Gerry Mosney.
There is another connection between Cornwall
and Bournemouth. Bournemouth
is said to have been founded by a Cornishman, Lewis Dymoke Grosvenor Tregonwell
(1758 – 1833). There is a statue of Tregonwell outside the
Bournemouth International Centre and a plaque at the Royal Exeter Hotel
commemorating the erection of the first house in Bournemouth.
Our association marks his birthday (Valentines Day) every year by raising the
St Piran Flag over the B.I.C and laying flowers on his tomb.
The below article was written by The Reverend
Doctor Stephen Dray who was our chaplain until his work took him away from
the area.
The
Case of a Founding ‘Cornishman’
‘You will
find’, so they used to say, ‘a Cornishman at the bottom of a mine
anywhere in the world.’ Indeed, communities worldwide, lay claim to
having been founded by engineers and miners plying their trade far from the
Duchy itself. But there are places closer to hand, that have little to do
with such trades, localities that good Cornish folk like to claim are
‘theirs. Prominent among them is Bournemouth
but, like all good myths, there appears both truth and error in this claim.
The story starts well. A
gentleman with the most Cornish-sounding of names, Lewis Tregonwell, is often
seen as having inaugurated the community that burgeoned into modern Bournemouth. Such is certainly the claim on his
tombstone in St. Peter’s churchyard in the town and it does appear that
he built the first residence in the area.
The ‘received’
story includes a strong dose of pathos and romance. Thus, shortly after the
tragic death of their son, Grosvenor Portman (on the day of his baptism)
Lewis and his second wife, Henrietta, then on holiday in nearby Mudeford,
drove out to the little glen that marked the mouth of the little Bourne
River. Struck by its beauty and
peacefulness, and possibly seeing it as a place that would help lift the
shadows of the recent past, they purchased the land to build a summer
residence. Completed in the year of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow it soon became a watering place for
Tregonwell’s friends. With an eye for the opportunity, a number of
smaller cottages were built for sale or let and advertised by word of mouth
or through the press. It was not long before Tregonwell expanded his
landholding to include much that now constitutes central Bournemouth:
his fortune assured and the foundations for the settlement’s rapid
growth established.
But who was Lewis Tregonwell
and does this idyllic picture of a bereaved father ‘striking it
rich’ by a chance encounter with the beauties of Bourne Mouth really
‘ring true’? And what exactly do we know of Lewis’ links
with Cornwall?
Here, one might say, ‘the plot thickens’.
First of all, the Tregonwell
family had, for a number of centuries, established themselves as Dorset gentry. Indeed, the Tregonwell family tree
reveals Lewis to have been a member of the junior branch of Tregonwells whose
‘trunk’ extends back to Sir John Tregonwell of Milton Abbas who
lived from approximately 1503 to 1565. It is only when we reach Sir John that
we are told his father was ‘of Cornwall’.
The link with Cornwall,
while it exists, appears tenuous, to say the least: seven generations
intervene!
Secondly, evidence points
to the fact that Lewis was something of a ‘wide boy’. Most
recently he had retired as captain of the Dorset Volunteer Rangers: a troop
given responsibility to secure the shoreline from neighbouring Poole to Christchurch against the threat of a
Napoleonic invasion. He must have become intimately acquainted with the
neighbourhood. His ‘chance’ encounter of the idyllic Bourne Mouth
with his grieving wife may be afforded a different ‘spin’ in the
light of this and will be further explored below. Further, there is little
doubt that Lewis was a man with a shrewd eye for the ‘main
chance’. His first marriage is, perhaps, instructive.
Lewis was born in 1758,
probably (one might almost say prophetically) on St. Valentine’s Day.
At 23 he courted and won the hand of Catherine Sydenham. Their first child,
St. Barbe, was born barely eight months after the wedding.
Rather that suggest a highly
successful honeymoon and a premature birth, it is not impossible to rule out seduction
since the choice of Catherine was a good one: she was the sole heiress of St.
Barbe Sydenham of Combe, Somerset and Priory, Devon. Indeed, of interest at this point are the
records of the Sydenham family. Several things are evident. Catherine’s
father was inadequate and control of the family affairs lay in the hands of
her mother. Catherine, herself, was dominated by her mother and under her
‘apron strings’. At 23 she was still naïve and impressionable and
we are told Lewis ‘soon got his ends’. Almost to the script, he
had presented himself as having a ‘pretty good estate’ but
‘money was short’.
Thus, Lewis reads like a
typical unscrupulous but winsome adventurer. However, mother was not entirely
free from responsibility since she had ‘advertised’ Catherine as
carrying a £100,000 fortune with her. The marriage settlement, dated 14th
September, six weeks before the wedding, is generous but carefully worded and
the wedding itself took place in haste since ‘the preceding evening
knew nothing of the matter’ and the couple left immediately after the
wedding. All seems to point to a marriage being planned but opposed by Mrs.
Sydenham who was trumped by Lewis when knowledge of Catherine’s
seduction emerged. A quickly and quietly arranged ceremony followed such
disgrace and Catherine was ‘winged’ away. Certainly this is one
way of reading the evidence.
Catherine, of course, may well
have been a ‘giddy’ and willing accomplice. There is no evidence
that the marriage was unhappy. However, there is every evidence that Mrs.
Sydenham loathed Lewis… and that this was reciprocal! Family records
speak of Mrs. Sydenham’s fondness for daughter and grandson but note
the ‘great difference there was between the temper of the mother-in-law
and the son’ such that it was questioned ‘how could they
unite’.
Eventually things came to a
head. Six years after the marriage Lewis demanded a substantial monetary gift
(perhaps £5000 or £10,000) from his in-laws. Refusal was met by Lewis, his
wife and children removing to France.
Begging letters (one suspects accompanied by threats) followed. Meanwhile Mrs
Sydenham persuaded (or, possibly more likely, conned) her husband into
disinheriting Catherine. Lewis predictably returned to the scene on hearing
this news and with a group of malcontents first offered menaces and then
abducted Mr. Sydenham.
The sequel is interesting.
Granted a writ against Lewis and his companions, they appeared together with
Mr. and Mrs. Sydenham in the Exeter Assize. The former (either in relief at
escaping a hectoring wife and/or under the influence of Lewis) indicated his
preference to remain with his daughter and, in an ironic turn of events,
virtually disinherited his wife!
The links that unite Tregonwell
to Cornwall
are, therefore, more tenuous than the popular myth suggests and rather than
benevolent founder, Lewis appears to be something of an adventurer.
However, one further piece of
the jigsaw helps complete the picture and establish Lewis’ Cornish
credentials. When Portman Lodge, the cottage that Tregonwell had built for
his butler, Symes, was demolished in 1930 a surprise was in store. Three feet
below ground level, and accessed only by a trap door, was a sizeable
underground chamber, 3 metres by 2 and with ample headroom.
Why should Tregonwell include
such a peculiar ‘cellar’ under his butler’s residence?
Could it be that he was, in fact, a smuggler ‘baron’. Certainly
such ‘caves’ are documented as having existed in the area.
Further evidence is tantalisingly elusive, but equally suggestive! It
deserves investigation.
The coast between Christchurch
and Swanage (over which ‘Captain’ Tregonwell had served) was a
well known haunt for smugglers; indeed the village
of Studland was famous for its
‘gang’ and its reputation for ruthlessness on the high seas.
Smugglers trails can be traced well inland and it is difficult to escape the
conclusion that local gentry, including the vicar of Kinson, were involved in
the trade. Perhaps significantly, one of the most famous of local smugglers,
Isaac Gulliver, was (at the time of Tregonwell’s move into the area)
living in Kinson. While the story goes that he was in retirement there are
also tales that he had the favour of George III: having foiled an
assassination plot. Further, the peculiar geology of Bourne Mouth, with its
succession of glens (or chines) running down to the sea, is known to have
been favoured by the smuggling fraternity: not least the one down which the
Bourne stream flowed. In fact, until tax changes in the second quarter of the
nineteenth century were accompanied by more effective policing and sterner
measures were adopted by magistrates, smugglers were still known to ply their
trade in the immediate locality. All of which suggests that Lewis, now in his
early fifties, still had an eye for a quick return. Knowing the area well and
the possibilities it provided, the visit to Bourne Mouth reads more like a
reconnaissance in preparation for the establishing of a new career.
So was Bournemouth
founded by a Cornishman? It probably depends upon one’s definition of
Cornish. Lewis Tregonwell certainly had a genuine, if rather distant,
ancestry that linked him with the Duchy. However, if one adopts the premise
‘blood will out’, the fact that he was apparently and deeply
implicated in that most Cornish of trades, smuggling, and consistently rode
in the ‘fast lane’ is probably determinative… of course he
was Cornish!
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