Although Cornwall is comparatively remote from London, one factor which was generally seen at a major disadvantage in previous centuries, the county can number several ‘firsts’ in various fields. The first Roman Catholic priest to be martyred in England, was Cuthbert Mayne, a Roman Catholic priest at Probus. After being declared a traitor, and refusing to acknowledge the supremacy of Queen Elizabeth as head of the church, he was hanged at Launceston in 1577. At around the same time Sir Walter Raleigh, who had introduced sotweed, the Elizabethan name for tobacco, into England from Virginia, was said to be the first famous person to smoke it in public when he was a guest of the Killigrew family in Falmouth in 1586. Some claim that the habit had been brought from France to England, although he is the one most widely blamed for leading people astray.
On a more positive note, in the nineteenth century the Cornish were the first to be told of the great British victory at the battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805. The news was given to local fishermen, who informed the authorities at Penzance, and the mayor, Thomas Giddy, made an official announcement at the Assembly Rooms at the Union Hotel. A courier, John Lapenotiere, rode in a post-chaise carriage from Falmouth to London in thirty-eight hours (a journey which normally took one week) to bring the news to King and country.
In Victorian times Silas Hocking, born at St Stephen-in-Brannel, a Methodist minister and writer, was reputedly the first novelist to have a million-selling book during his lifetime with Her Benny, a story about street children in Liverpool, even though he is little remembered today. Towards the end of the century Helston-born Bob Fitzsimmons, who emigrated to the United States as a young man, became the first boxer to win three world titles, Middleweight in 1891, Heavyweight in 1897, and Light-Heavyweight in 1903. In the latter year the engineer and inventor Guglielmo Marconi stayed in the county when the first transatlantic wireless message was transmitted from Newfoundland to Poldhu.
Closer to the present day, drummer Roger Taylor was brought up in Truro where he formed his first rock band. In 1968 he helped to form Smile, which later evolved into Queen, and whose first performance took place at Truro City Hall in June 1970.
'The Little Book of Cornwall' by John Van der Kiste is available now.