General Notes

b? Trelowith Manor, St Mewan, Cornwall, England


Extinct Cornish Families, Part II
by Mr. W.C. Wade
Read December 18th, 1890. Published in Transactions of the Plymouth Institution & Devon and Cornwall Natural History Society, 1890-1891.

In a previous paper I treated on two extinct Cornish families, the members of which had distinguished themselves, in public and private life, for the possession of those qualities which we believe particularly pertain to the character of Englishmen. I referred in passing to many other extinct Cornish families, whose names are scarcely remembered now in the land which they dignified by their upright carriage as citizens, and by their abilities as statesmen, legislators, or as captains, or again as landowners who did their utmost to improve the Commonwealth. Our country could never have attained its present position but for the fact that in Cornwall, as in every county in Britain, such eminent men and such esteemed families have flourished to elevate the social life, and to guide the public affairs of the State. Whatever our views may be of democratic institutions, we must admit the probability that there always will exist in England an aristocracy or rank or of talent on whose capacity for guiding the national life will largely rest the destinies of the nation. It is in the last degree improbable that personal characteristics will ever lose their influence in English public or private life. Shakspere evidently felt that the English of his day were worthy of high admiration when he spoke of --

"This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,
Dear for its reputation through the earth."
I think that we who enjoy the immense privileges of the enlightened age in which we live, would fail to be just if we seldom or never turned the records of the past, in order to know something of the men who went before us, and who made our country what it is.

Before going very far in studying the histories of the chief families of the most western county two facts become strikingly apparent. The first is, that the Cornish people seldom married out of their own county; and the second fact is, that most of the anceitn Cornish land-owning families are now extinct in name, while many who preserve the name are representatives only through female heiresses. Carew says, "This angle which shutteth them in hath wrought many interchangeable matches with each other's stock, and given beginning to the proverb -- "All Cornishmen are cousins." The geographical situation of Cornwall is scarcely sufficient to account for these constant intermarriages, since Cornishmen travelled a good deal, and were in regular political and commercial contact with other parts of the realm.

I purpose tonight to refer to the family of Carminow, giving some brief references to the chief extinct families with whom they intermarried.

Polwhele asserts that the first member of the Carminow Camily was living in A.D. 889, but a much higher antiquity has been claimed for the family; for Cleaveland, in his History of the House of Courtenay, states that a Carminow led a body of British troops to oppose the landing of Julius Cæsar.

Without doubt the family of Carminow was one of the most ancient in Cornwall, and they are creditied with having resided in Mawgan-in-Menage, near Helston, before the Conquest. Their name is not mentioned in Domesday. The late Mr. J. Jope Rogers, of Penrose, contributed two valuable papers to the transactions of the Royal Institution of Cornwall, relating to the eldest branch of this family, to which I am much indebted. He states that in Mawgan-in-Menage Church, which was entirely rebuilt in 1865, is a transept which has always been called the Carminow aisle. The south wall contained a low-arched recess, which had long sheltered a cross-legged effigy of a knight, carved in freestone, much defaced by time, but bearing on the shield distinct traces of the simple armorial bearings of the Carminows; viz., azure, a bend or. A female effigy of the sa