A.L. Rowse And Cornwall

Philip Payton

Description

Winner of the Adult Non-Fiction section of the Holyer an Gof Awards 2006, and Overall Winner of the Holyer an Gof Trophy, this gripping biographical study, published here for the first time in paperback, explores the immensely complicated relationship that existed between A.L. Rowse and his native Cornwall.


Rowse’s books, A Cornish Childhood and Tudor Cornwall, remain in strong demand and are essential reading for the general reader and historian alike, and for all those who know and love Cornwall. By shedding new light on this complex character, Payton invites a greater understanding of the broader issues of Cornish identity as well as assessing Rowse’s highly original contribution to the writing of British and Cornish history.

List of Illustrations


Preface


1 'This Was the Land of My Content': A Fitting Epitaph?


2 'No Wonder I Preferred Life at All Souls': Escaping a Cornish Childhood


3 'You're No Rowse': The Mount–Mabel–Montana


4 'She Made Me Detest the Very Nature of Women': A Mother's Legacy?


5 'A Deep Anxiety to Do His Best for Cornwall': Confronting the Politics of Paralysis


6 'Haunted by Cornwall': A Case of Mutual Rejection?


7 'Not Being English, Alas–But Hopelessly Cornish': Embracing Churchill's England


8 'The Biggest and Most Significant of Cornish Themes': America and the Great Emigration


9 'I Have Been "In Love" with Cornwall All My Life': Reclaiming the Cornish Past and Future


10 'Marooned on My Headland': Retirement, Isolation and Loneliness


11 'All the Island Peoples': Writing British and Cornish History


Conclusion: 'What Could I Not Have Done for Cornwall!'


Notes


Further Reading


Lost of the Principle Works by A.L. Rowse


Index


 

Sujets

• Regional Studies
• 20th Century
• Modern
• landscape
• HISTORY
• Histoire
• Cornualles
• Biography
• Rowse
• Modern history
• History of the British Isles
• International studies
• Childhood
• General officer
• Ireland
• Region
• History of Europe
• Scream/Childhood
• Stephen Ireland
• Great Britain
• Regional
• General
• Obermodern-Zutzendorf
• Cornwall
• Europe

Informations

• Publié par: University of Exeter Press
• Date de parution: 02 mars 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780859898966
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

A.L. Rowse A.L. Rowse and Cornwall

N

PHILIP PAYTON

A.L. Rowse and Cornwall

A.L. Rowse frequently expressed ambivalence towards Cornwall and the Cornish people, and yet his sense of his own ‘Cornishness’ was central to his entire being; neither the man nor his works can be properly under stood without taking this fact into account. His books A Cornish ChildhoodandTudor Cornwallremain in strong demand, known and read by the general reader and historian alike, and by those who know and love Cornwall.

Philip Payton’s awardwinning biographical study sheds new light on this complex character and invites a greater understanding of the broader issues of Cornish identity.

Philip Payton edits the seriesCornish Studies, published by University of Exeter Press, and is the author of numerous books includingThe Making of Modern Cornwall(1992),Cornwall: A History(1996, new edition 2004),The Cornish Overseas: A History of Cornwall’s Great Emigration(1999, new edition, 2005) and A Vision of Cornwall(2002). His other new book for University of Exeter Press—on Cornish miners in Australia—is calledMaking Moonta: The Invention of ‘Australia’s Little Cornwall’.

A.L. Rowse and Cornwallwas winner of the Adult NonFiction section of theHolyer an GofAwards 2006 awarded by the Cornish Gorseth for making a significant contribution to Cornish culture and research, and Overall Winner of theHolyer an GofTrophy.

‘¬ The latest and most insightful of biographies of Rowse¬ essential reading for anyone who wants to understand a great Cornishman and the nuances of Cornish and CornishAmerican identities.’ Cornish World

‘This is A.L. Rowse as we have never seen him before: it provides us with the key—in so far as such a key can ever be found—to Rowse’s notoriously contradictory personality.’ Mark Stoyle, University of Southampton

‘Professor Payton is to be congratulated on producing such an intriguing, lively and informed volume. ¬ I enjoyed the book immensely and found it difficult to put the book down¬’ Colin H. Williams, Cardiff University

‘This is an excellent biography which is highly readable and well worth the effort. It does throw new light on the man and his place amongst Cornish letters and, despite all the negatives and contra dictions, recognises Rowse’s claim to be, if not necessarily the greatest, certainly a very great Cornishman.’ Cornwall Association of Local Historians Journal

‘This probing but affectionate look at a very complex character is not only of interest to those who have followed Rowse, it is also a fasci nating insight into both how that character related to Cornwall and how his homeland reacted to him.’

The West Briton

A.L. Rowse and Cornwall

A Paradoxical Patriot

PHILIP PAYTON

COVER ILLUSTRATIONS:Front cover:Rowse at Polmear Mine; Back cover:Rowse at Trenarren (courtesy of Special Collections, University of Exeter Library).

First published in 2005 by University of Exeter Press Reed Hall, Streatham Drive Exeter EX4 4QR UK www.exeterpress.co.uk

This paperback edition published 2007

© Philip Payton 2005

The right of Philip Payton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

ISBN 978 0 85989 798 3

The author and publisher have made every effort to trace original copyright holders of illustrations used in this book in order to obtain their permission. We would like to take this opportunity of making acknowledgement to any copyright holder that we may have failed to contact.

Typeset in Plantin Light by XL Publishing Services, Tiverton

Printed in Great Britain by Antony Rowe Ltd, Chippenham

For James

‘Not keen about people writing about me—they are simply not up to the subject—too difficult for them’

(Letter from A.L Rowse to D.R. Rawe of Padstow, Cornwall, 7 February 1972, Llyfrgell Genedlaethol Cymru/ National Library of Wales, Legonna Papers, 33/7)

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List of Illustrations Preface

Contents

‘This Was the Land of My Content’: A Fitting Epitaph?

‘No Wonder I Preferred Life at All Souls’: Escaping a Cornish Childhood

‘You’re No Rowse’: The Mount—Mabel—Montana

‘She Made Me Detest the Very Nature of Women’: A Mother’s Legacy?

‘A Deep Anxiety to Do His Best for Cornwall’: Confronting the Politics of Paralysis

‘Haunted by Cornwall’: A Case of Mutual Rejection?

‘Not Being English, Alas—But Hopelessly Cornish’: Embracing Churchill’s England

8 ‘The Biggest and Most Significant of Cornish Themes’: America and the Great Emigration 9 ‘I Have Been “In Love” with Cornwall All My Life’: Reclaiming the Cornish Past and Future 10 ‘Marooned on My Headland’: Retirement, Isolation and Loneliness 11 ‘All the Island Peoples’: Writing British and Cornish History Conclusion: ‘What Could I Not Have Done for Cornwall!’

Notes Further Reading List of the Principal Works by A.L. Rowse Index

viii ix

1

23 47

71

99 129

149

173

199

225 253 283

287 309 311 313

Illustrations

Front cover: A.L. Rowse at Polmear Mine Back cover: A.L. Rowse at Trenarren Frontispiece: Memorial Stone, Black Head, courtesy of Deidre Cleary 1 The sylvan delight of Trenarren 2 The austere chinaclay country 3 Rowse as a boy at Tregonissey with his Vanson grandparents 4 Holy Trinity Church, St Austell 5 Rowse as a chorister at Holy Trinity, St Austell 6 Rowse at Carclaze Elementary School 7 Sir Arthur Quiller Couch boating at Fowey 8 C.V. Thomas, onetime member of Cornwall County Council 9 A.L. Rowse, recently elected Fellow of All Souls, in 1927 10 Annie Vanson—Rowse’s mother 11 Rowse’s father in Johannesburg, South Africa,c. 1883–1885 12 ‘Polmear Mine which I owned and where I lived 1940–1953’ 13 Rowse’s mother, in old age 14 Annie Rowse and Hetty May 15 A photograph of F.W. May’s van 16 Charles Henderson the Cornish enthusiast in 1928 17 Charles Henderson, his bride Isobel Munro and a friend 18 Noreen Sweet: ‘early school friend and to the end’ 19 A.L. Rowse as a Parliamentary candidate 20 Rowse’s election flyer, 1935 21 Claude Berry, lifelong friend of A.L. Rowse 22 The Longstone at Mount Charles, St Austell 23 Rowse the anglophile scholar 24 Rowse in characteristic pose 25 En route to New York on boardRMS Queen Elizabeth 26 Rowse in Portland, Oregon 27 Rowse at the Huntington Library Christmas party, 1966 28 The view from Trenarren 29 Rowse at work in the upstairs study at Trenarren 30 A.L. Rowse and Barbara Hepworth 31 Rowse in his downstairs study at Trenarren 32 A.L. Rowse celebrates his 86th birthday 33 Rowse contemplates the advance of old age 34 Rowse in Cornwall with his old friend, David Treffry 35 Rowse in the drawing room at Trenarren 36 Rowse in advanced old age at Trenarren

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Preface

As a teenager I fell under the spell ofTudor Cornwall. My first contacts with A.L. Rowse, however, were as a young postgraduate student at the University of Adelaide when I wrote to him to seek advice on writing about the Cornish in Australia. Already aware of his reputation, I was braced for the likely rebuff. But instead of the scornful dismissal of my efforts as the misguided idiocy of an ignorant thirdrater, I was pleasantly surprised— or rather astonished—by a returnofpost reply brimming over with encouragement and stuffed full with ideas of sources I might tap and people I might approach. Thereafter, encouragement was constant, not least after my return to the United Kingdom, when I was able to visit Rowse at Trenarren. He was genuinely delighted by my appointment in 1991 as Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies, part of the University of Exeter but situated in Cornwall and partfunded by Cornwall County Council. Enthusiasm and encouragement were matched by generosity, with Rowse donating important volumes and whole runs of journals to the Institute library, which is now subsumed in the Combined Universities in Cornwall library at the new Tremough campus at Penryn. A.L. Rowse’s death in 1997 prompted the first signs of what he had himself long prophesied would be a ‘Rowse industry’ in the twentyfirst century. Richard Ollard’s sympathetic biographyA Man of Contradictions: A Life of A.L. Rowseappeared swiftly, published in 1999, an impressive volume and an indication of the continuing high level of public interest in Rowse’s long career. But it was also quickly apparent that Rowse’s tortured and tortuous relationship with his native Cornwall would require extended treatment in a separate study of its own if the full complexity of his life was to be grasped. That is the purpose of this present volume. Happily, Rowse’s personal papers—vast and chaotic as they are—were deposited in the University of Exeter Special Collections Library shortly before his death. This immensely rich archive is the basis from which much of the research for this book has been conducted. I am indebted to Alasdair Paterson, the University Librarian, for making this important collection available to me. I am especially indebted to Jessica Gardner, the Special Collections Librarian, for her great enthusiasm for my project and for her constant encouragement and support. Her staff were unfailingly