11/4/15

Thursday Thought: Tin!

West Cornwall, 1895. A once-glorious tin mine, on which the whole town has depended for generations, is on its last legs.

"Tin"

“Tin”

A weather-beaten opera company arrives to give a performance of Beethoven’s “Fidelio” in the town hall and finds itself tangled up in a scam to offload worthless shares in the mine. When the mine unexpectedly yields up new treasures, melodrama starts to spill over into everyday life, reputations crumble and any notion of fair play is abandoned.

The fate of the whole community rests on the courage of one feisty young maid.

Benjamin Luxon

Benjamin Luxon

Made in Cornwall and based on a true story, Miracle Theatre’s highly anticipated feature film stars Jenny Agutter, Dudley Sutton and Ben Luxon alongside Helen Bendell, Ben Dyson, Steve Jacobs, Dean Nolan, and Jason Squibb.

Ben Luxon enjoyed an international career as an opera star. He was a main attraction at last year’s International Gathering of the Cornish American Heritage Society. He lives in Sandisfield, MA, where he leads community theater.

 

08/27/15

Thursday Thought: How 45 Minutes Took 5 Years

I was asked to contribute a guest blog for the prestigious Historical Novel Society. It is about how my novel came to be written.

Click here: http://awriterofhistory.com/2015/08/18/the-miner-the-viscount-by-richard-hoskin/

Although I did not realize it at the time, the birth of The Miner & The Viscount began when a professor friend asked me to contribute a Cornwall segment to his lecture series on aspects of the history and culture of Great Britain. I was recently retired and glad to embark on a new career as a lecturer, holding engrossed audiences in thrall.

“How many lectures would you like?” I asked. “Eight? Six?”

“Actually, one,” he replied, “and no more than 45 minutes including Q & A.”

Not quite what I had in mind but at least it would not take much effort, since I knew all about Cornwall having been born and bred there. I did some research to flesh out details, realising that stories from my childhood only skimmed the surface. The result was Cornwall: History, Mystery, Mansions and Mines. It proved a lot of effort for 45 minutes but at least I got them singing a rousing “Trelawney” at the end.

It seemed a pity to leave it at that. My New England wife suggested that since I loved Cornwall and enjoyed history, I should use the material to write an historical novel. She would help with editing. I was convinced. It would be a big project, imagined it would take at least a year. Moreover, I was passionate about telling the story of my Cornwall to a wider world.

The timeframe I settled on was the late 18th century. Widespread change was emerging: the agricultural and industrial revolutions and the invention of the steam engine, social unrest and the rise of Methodism, popular education and the influence of women, political corruption at home and expansion of empire overseas, the beginnings of the Enlightenment.

I assembled sources. Steven Watson, my tutor at Oxford, published The Reign of George III. My brother-in-law, Dr. J.R. Ravensdale had written the volume onCornwall for the National Trust. Lewis Namier devoted an entire chapter to the machination of the 44 Cornish MPs in his breakthrough work The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III. There were biographies of William Pitt the Elder (whose grandfather bought Boconnoc), the journals of John Wesley, books on mining, scores of articles to be woven into a coherent pattern. And then there was John Allen’s History of the Borough of Liskeard published in 1856 by John Philp, founder of The Cornish Times.

But above all were my personal experiences of growing up in Liskeard, living in those beautiful places, knowing those sturdily independent people, absorbing their legends and their story. This is what got my imagination surging.

Following expert advice, I planned to begin with an outline. I decided to build my story around Cornish gentry in great houses and miners and farm labourers in tiny cottages. I picked famous historical figures to mingle with my fictitious characters. I thought up a title, The Miner & the Viscount. I picked a start date, 1760. I typed the title and “Outline” on a fresh document. Then I got stuck.

The only outline I ever created was one summarising what I had already written, to keep things straight. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, my good man.” “But my lord, you already had me flogged in Chapter Six.”

I just started writing drafts. Fortunately, as I got into it the characters magically took over. Their loves, their hates, partnerships, rivalries, joys, sufferings, doings: their story became my story. I would finish a chapter and stare at my computer. What ever would happen next? And Willy Bunt would come into my mind. “Us just ’as to get on with it, zir, Oi’ll tell ’e what Oi’d do if Oi were ye.”

Location Research

Location Research

After three years and six rewrites I had a finished manuscript. A research trip to Cornwall would enable me to fill in a few details, add a little local colour. We visited Liskeard, Port Eliot, Boconnoc, Lanhydrock, Bodmin Moor, the tin and copper mines down west, absorbed the countryside, heard more stories about the people who lived there in the 18th century. We met Maureen Fuller, Grand Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh and she agreed to translate some dialogue into the ancient Cornish language, adding so much authenticity.

Back in Kentucky an experienced member of my writers’ group offered to burnish the final version, a little tweak here and there. After three more rewrites, 25,000 more words, and two more years we sent the manuscript to the publisher.

The story of Cornwall was finally mine to tell. Well, perhaps with a little help from Willy Bunt.

06/18/15

Thursday Thoughts: Boulder Gold!

Next week I’m off to Colorado for a very full visit. I will participate in the Historical Novel Society conference in Denver. My mentor is best-selling historical novel author, Diana Gabaldon. I will give talks on my book in Boulder and Brighton. And best of all I will be with my children and grandchildren.

There is great history of the Cornish in Colorado. Perhaps one of the most interesting times was the mining era.

Beginning in 1859, Cornish hard rock miners flocked to Colorado to mine gold, silver and lead. Dr. A.L. Rowse, the Oxford historian born the son of a clay worker in St. Austell, Cornwall, wrote in The Cornish in America:

“Cornish miners, with their long experience in underground work, contributed much to the improvement of mining technique. . . by their skillful sinking of shafts and tracing of veins and . . . their mechanical aids like the Cornish pump for removing water from the underground recesses.”

Cornish Miner Boulder, CO

Cornish Miner
Boulder, CO

The Cornish miner is commemorated by the famous statue on Pearl Street in Boulder.

 

05/14/15

Thursday Thoughts: John Caddy

John Caddy

John Caddy

 

John Caddy grew up in Hibbing and Virginia, iron mining towns on the Mesabi Range of northern Minnesota. His great-grandfather, Tom Caddy, was one of the Cornishmen who came to Upper Michigan for the copper and iron mines in the 1870s and 80s after the collapse of hard rock mining in Cornwall. 

John describes himself as “an aging poet whose spirit is more lively all the time.” He first visited the land of his roots in 1992, performed his poetry and formed close attachments that led to his being made a Bard of the Cornish Gorsedh.

Here is one of his poems about Cornwall and the spirit of its miners. It was published in the book With Mouths Open Wide, New and Selected Poems in the section “Presences the Blood Learns Again”.  Learn more about John at http://www.morning-earth.org

 

COMING TO GRASS

Cornishman: a man at the bottom of a mine, singing.

They came to grass at the end of the day.
They climbed from the Dark to grass
and carried the Dark up with them.

After a long day of night with only
the head’s candle for light,
after aching hours of sledging iron
against candle-gleamed borer,

Grass was the surface they climbed to
through a thousand feet of Dark—
Over and over they pulled their weight up the rungs
as their hearts rang the ribcage,
to come up to light and grass-green,
but to carry Dark with them unseen.

Dark changed the strong men,
shortened their tempers, stubborned beliefs,
roughened their tongues—
Dark led them to think
they were the ones who could see.

But in the mine, in chapel, in pub,
Bearing this Dark is what taught them to sing.

08/28/14

Thomas Newcomen

I am pleased to welcome a guest blogger, Susan W. Howard, now of San Jose, CA., and a descendant of the illustrious Hornblower family of Cornwall. This link will take you to the biography of Joseph Hornblower  http://penwood.famroots.org/joseph_hornblower.htm

Susan gave a talk about her researches at the Cornish Gathering in Milwaukee. She has written this brief portrait of Thomas Newcomen, who is credited with being the inventor of the atmospheric steam engine, which would “do the work of five horses.” One was built at the Wheal Vor mine as early as 1710 and by the time my story opens in 1760 as many as 70 were at work in Cornwall. The engine worked by injecting cold water into the steam cylinder to create a vacuum. The later designs of the Scotsman James Watt and the great Cornishman Richard Trevithick used the energy of expanding steam.

              The Newcomen Engine

The Newcomen Engine

Thomas Newcomen, inventor of the atmospheric steam engine, was a modest and devoutly religious man who left behind few records of his life. Some eighteenth century scientists such as Royal Society member John Desaguliers had difficulty in giving Newcomen credit for his invention. Desaguliers wrote that the engine that began pumping water from the mines at Coneygree colliery near Dudley Castle in Staffordshire in 1712 came about “very luckily by accident.” Newcomen in fact did possess the intellectual capacity and practical experience to build the engine. He relied upon his close-knit circle of fellow Baptists to supply help and needed expertise. Among them were John Calley, Humphrey Potter, and Joseph Hornblower, who built Newcomen engines in Cornwall. Newcomen may have begun building an engine at Wheal Vor in Cornwall as early as 1710; the Royal Cornwall Museum gives him credit for a machine built there in 1716.

Thomas Newcomen was born in Dartmouth, Devon in 1664. He became an ironmonger and while in his early twenties he visited mining regions in the West Midlands and Cornwall to sell and to manufacture metal tools and small household items. No record of an apprenticeship survives, but bills for ironmongery and purchases of bulk iron have been found. Letters written by his contemporaries do contain references to Newcomen and the steam engine. Two of Newcomen’s own letters have survived, and as far as can be discovered, no portrait of him was made. Apparently he began experimenting with steam engines in the mid-1690s. The extent that the ideas of other inventors or scientists influenced his work is a matter of conjecture. Inventor Thomas Savery had already been granted a patent for a “fire engine,” so Newcomen joined in a partnership with him to build an engine suitable for pumping water from the mines. Eventually more than 2,000 atmospheric steam engines were built. Newcomen was also a lay preacher, a trustee of the Netherton Baptist chapel (near Dudley) and an Overseer of the Poor. After his death in 1729 at the London home of fellow Baptist Edward Wallin, Newcomen was buried in Bunhill Fields, a nonconformist cemetery in London; the location of his gravesite, like so many of the details of his life, remains unknown.

Note: Desaguliers quote from L.T.C. Rolt and J. S. Allen, The Steam Engine of Thomas Newcomen, (Landmark Publishing, Ashbourne, Derbershire, 1997) 46.

07/24/14

Try the first chapter!

My new book is turning out to be a great adventure. So thrilling for an author! Readers around the world tell me they find The Miner and the Viscount really interesting, a great story filled with fascinating characters, a page turner, as one reader put it.

Of course, I want everyone to read it. But you probably want to judge the book for yourself. Here’s my offer:

Sign up for my Newsletter and I will send you the first chapter of The Miner and the Viscount.  It’s an easy way to be introduced to the characters and plot of my book. If you like it and decide to buy a copy, you can easily do so right on my website.  If you decide to pass, no problem. But by getting my newsletter, I’m hoping you will soon change your mind and come around to purchasing a copy.

The Newsletter, by the way, is intended to share information and answer questions from readers wanting to know more of the background of the story, Cornwall itself, and the exhilarations (and travails) that went into writing the book.

Here’s the link to the newsletter/free chapter sign-up: http://eepurl.com/XMEor Be sure to check the box indicating you’d like me to send you the chapter.

Many thanks!

 

 

 

07/12/14

Who’s Who in The Miner & the Viscount?

One of the joys and, indeed, challenges of writing an historical novel is creating fictional characters and integrating them with real people from the time of the book’s events.  Interweaving real people with fictional persons helps enliven a bygone era and engage the reader in a way a dry, historical account might not.

I have my own favorite characters in The Miner & the Viscount; I wonder who yours might be.

Here is the cast of characters — the imagined and the long dead — which you can also find in the front pages of the book.

The Historic Characters

ELIOT FAMILY, of Port Eliot

Edward Eliot (1727-1804), created first Baron Eliot 1784

Catherine Elliston Eliot (1735-1804) his wife;

Edward James Eliot (1758-1797) their eldest surviving son;

John Eliot (1761-1823) their second son, first Earl of St. Germans;

William Eliot (1767-1845) their third son, second Earl of St. Germans;

John Eliot (1742-1769) younger brother of Edward Eliot

 PITT FAMILY, of Boconnoc

Thomas “Diamond” Pitt (1653-1726) East India merchant, Governor of Madras;

Robert Pitt (1680-1727) his eldest son, married Harriet Villiers (c.1680-1736);

Thomas Pitt, (1705-1761) elder son of Robert, former Lord Warden of the Stannaries, married Lucy Lyttelton;

William Pitt, the Elder (1708-1778) second son of Robert, married Lady Hester Grenville (1720-1803);

William Pitt, the Younger (1759-1806) second son of William Pitt the Elder;

Harriot Pitt (c. 1758-1786) younger daughter of William Pitt the Elder;  

Other Characters of Note:

Ralph Allen (1693-1764) Postmaster of Bath, entrepreneur;

Thomas Bolitho, merchant, investor, man of business;

Frances Boscawen (?-1805) widow of Admiral Edmund Boscawen, member of Blue Stockings Society;

Hannah More, intellectual, educator, member of Blue Stockings Society;

St. Piran (c. 6th century) patron saint of Cornwall and of tin miners;

Joshua Reynolds, portraitist, patronized by Eliots;

John Smeaton, inventor, first civil engineer, Fellow of the Royal Society;

Philip Stanhope, illegitimate son of Earl of Chesterfield, MP for Liskeard and later St. Germans, diplomat;

Reverend John Wesley, founder of Methodism;

John Williams, captain of Poldice Mine;

James Davis, Mayor of Liskeard;

Edwin Ough,Town Clerk of Liskeard;

Stephen Clogg, Councilman of Liskeard;

Thomas Peeke, turnpike witness

The Fictional Characters

PENWARDEN FAMILY

Addis, a tin miner in the Poldice mine; mine captain at Wheal Hykka; Lizzie, wife of Addis;

Jedson, a tin miner and younger brother of Addis;

Jeremiah (Jemmy), his firstborn son;

Jedson, second son;

Jennifer, his infant daughter

TRENANCE FAMILY, of Lanhydrock

Baron Trenance

Sir James Trenance, his son; becomes Baron Trenance upon the death of his father; later acquires title of Viscount Dunbargan

Lady Elianor, his wife

Honorable James Trenance, their son;

Honorable Gwenifer Trenance, their daughter;

Willy Bunt, valet and footman at Lanhydrock , then worker at Port Eliot;

Mary Bunt, née Abbott, Willy Bunt’s wife and former maid at Lanhydrock;

Catherine Bunt, their daughter, goddaughter to Catherine Eliot;

Charles Bunt, their son, godson to Charles Polkinghorne;

Joseph Clymo, steward of Lanhydrock estate;

Morwenna Clymo, his daughter

Tom Kegwyn, member of a mining family, ringleader at Wheal Hykka;

Reverend Peter Perry, Perranporth, Methodist minister;

Charles Polkinghorne, man of business for Port Eliot estate.