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This thesis conducts a legal analysis of the Duchy of Cornwall and how its perceived status has changed over the centuries. The roots of the Duchy date back nearly a thousand years therefore an understanding of the roots of the Duchy and its evolution, focussing on the significant legal issues, over time is necessary to comprehend its present position. The thesis concludes by exploring issues surrounding the contemporary legal status of the Duchy and identifies areas in which there is a convenient ambiguity. In doing so it establishes that while the Duchy and Government describe it as a “private estate” it enjoys privileges and rights which are unique to a “private estate”. In addition it has a significant role in supporting the United Kingdom’s Head of State, the Sovereign, and the heir to the throne. The associated research undertaken in connection with this thesis presents new information which challenges the arguments of those who claim via the Duchy a special constitutional status for Cornwall. The evidence also suggests that the Duchy is not, despite claims to the contrary, publicly accountable in way that is expected in the 21st Century. The possibilities suggested by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 have been utilised and the experience gained will be of value to future researchers. As a consequence of the refusal of public authorities to provide information five complaints have been made to the Information Commissioner and there have been, at the time of writing, four cases in front of the First Tier Tribunal (Information Rights). The material contained within the National Archives has been comprehensively investigated for the first time by anyone with any interest in the Duchy. This has revealed significant new information which although publicly available was not generally known and casts new light on the status of the Duchy. An exploration of the Parliamentary Archives, not previously undertaken, raises questions about the basis of the privileges enjoyed by the Duchy. A similarly detailed review of the legal material, including important court cases challenges the “rights” claimed for the Duchy.

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In this regional study of Methodist development and societal influence throughout the period of industrialisation, recent trends in Methodist historiography at a national level are combined with the research and source material accumulated at a local level, to provide a detailed analysis of Methodist growth in Cornwall between the years 1780 and 1870. The thesis is divided loosely into three sections. In the first, four chapters outline the essential background to interpretative analysis by considering, in turn, recent historiographical developments in Methodist studies; social change in Cornwall during industrialisation; the performance of the Anglican Church in the county as represented in the Visitation Returns for 1779, (as well as historical and structural reasons for its 'failure'); and Methodist growth as expressed through available statistical indices, especially the date of formation of Methodist societies, and the 1851 Ecclesiastical Census. In the second section, one long chapter is devoted to an in-depth, county-wide analysis of Methodist growth, which considers the impact of external factors, particularly socio-economic, and internal circumstances, such as the degree of maturity of pastoral and administrative machinery, and the level of Connexional or lay control over chapel and circuit affairs, on the form and function of Methodism in nine distinct socioeconomic regions within the county. In the third section, four chapters concentrate on West Cornwall, where Methodism was strongest, in order to examine the roots of, and reasons for, the distinctively indigenous form of Methodism which developed there. On the one hand, the pastoral and administrative difficulties in exerting adequate Connexional control are considered; while on the other, an interpretation of the 'folk' functionality of revivals and of Methodism as a 'popular religion' is offered.

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published_or_final_version / abstract / toc / Fine Arts / Master / Master of Philosophy

This is a creative/critical project, a collection of narratives inspired by critical discourse that map a local landscape and chart a personal topography. As a result of interdisciplinary study, particularly in the area of cultural geography and map making, I found new ways to explore ideas about Cornwall’s heritage, her undermined landscape and expand upon issues raised in my MA dissertation. Recognising the instability and partiality of maps provided insight and mapping became method as newly revealed pathways and subtly shifting perspectives inspired fresh narratives which challenge stereotypical images of Cornwall and reveal the sometimes dark realities of rurality. The more personal narratives in this collection reveal a different undermined landscape: ideas about romantic constructions and inheritance led to explorations of nostalgia, memory and identity. Life events became life writing and many of these narratives reflect a search for direction and for a missing person: the artist I once was. But there are other disappearances in these narratives and the final chapter gives an account of family events that had to be recorded but which raise ethical questions that life writers cannot ignore. We must take responsibility for the way we write about vulnerable subjects and recognise what this writing tells us about ourselves: that, as Nancy K. Miller has suggested, by exposing our lives to others through life writing, we too become vulnerable subjects. The essay accompanying these narratives reflects upon process and finds ways of giving an account of the writer writing. It uncovers contemporary theories that are embedded in the narratives and I describe it as an orouboros, a creature that continuously eats its own tail. Like the text it subjects to scrutiny, the essay is a life narrative, an autobiographical act that merges creative and critical thinking and this amalgamation has been my aim since my studies began.

This thesis seeks to explore the influence of Henry Jenner as one of the most prominent figures of the Celtic Revival in Cornwall and in the wider Celtic community. To contextualise this, it will examine the image of the Celts as a people in the first half of the twentieth century and the assertion of Celtic identity in that period through the Celtic Revival. The opening chapter examines the concepts of nations and nationalism, particularly Celtic nationalism. The second chapter focuses on the Victorian era as a motivating force for Henry Jenner and others to ‘write back’ against a long and insidious discourse of discrimination. Chapter Three goes on to look at how the political situation in both Britain and Ireland came to influence the nature of Celtic identity assertion and also the extent to which Jenner’s own political views impacted on the nature of Cornwall’s Celtic Revival. In Chapter Four the impact of tourism on Cornwall, and on Cornish identity, is examined, particularly how the image of Cornwall as a Celtic nation created by Jenner and others was embraced and manipulated by that industry. Chapter Five looks at the consequences of image manipulation on tourist-dependent regions. The final chapter concentrates more specifically on the work of Jenner and the Old Cornwall Societies, and the thesis concludes by appraising the influence of the ideas and beliefs of Henry Jenner on our contemporary vision of Cornwall. It focuses particularly on how the predominance of memory created a haunted identity which was embraced by the burgeoning tourist industry and examines how this identity has subsequently impacted on the economic well-being of the region. But it also concludes that Jenner’s legacy endures in so many of the positive images of, and statements about, Cornwall today.

This study digs beneath the cultural façade of pottery, delving deeper into the individual consciousness and choices behind the selection of the clays used to make them. The social significance of clay and its sourcing practices is rarely considered in ceramic studies, and is generally restricted to an assessment of technical properties. This subject is thus poorly theorised, ignoring the potential of that first choice and act in the social process of ceramic production. This thesis sets out a theoretical approach – raw-material spatialisation – and utilises a ceramic petrographic methodology designed to investigate social change through the changing composition of ceramic fabrics. The study focuses on the continuous pottery sequence spanning the 4th-11th century AD in Cornwall, a period of immense social, religious and political change, viewed in its regional and national context. The first synthesis of ceramic traditions in the South West for 50 years, this study highlights previously overlooked similarities in the phases of ceramic innovation and production between Cornwall and western Wessex and the role of Devon as an aceramic buffer zone. Previous studies have highlighted the selection and preference of gabbroic clays, unique to the Lizard Peninsula, used in the production of pottery in Cornwall since the start of Neolithic and which became a tradition that lasted roughly 5000 years. Interpretation has rarely moved beyond David Peacock’s original assumption of the technical superiority of this material. This study challenges and overturns that assumption, establishing that social choice was the motivating factor in its procurement. The repeated use of gabbroic clay created and maintained a shared social reality within the socialised landscape occupied by the past peoples of Cornwall. Gabbroic clay had a totemic meaning within society: its source became a node in the socialised landscape; and its repeated extraction and distribution maintained not only society but regional kinship networks and their identities. The shift away from the exploitation of this totemic material towards clays sourced locally to settlements around the 7th-8th century coincides with the growing influence of Christianity in Cornwall. One of the early monastic foundations was strategically placed at its socially significant gabbro source eventually eroding its totemic meaning. The end of the gabbroic tradition and the region’s resilient decentralised system of pottery production came with the Norman Conquest, when the creation of a new market centres, networks and systems of landownership forcibly integrated Cornwall into the wider national framework once more. This study conclusively demonstrates that the selection of a clay source should be interpreted as an indicator of social, and not merely technical or economic, choice. It also establishes that the use of a rigorous and systematic programme of scientific inquiry, combined with an informed theoretical perspective, can identify the evidence for social change behind the façade of the otherwise largely static pottery traditions of the 5th-11th centuries AD in most parts of the British Isles.