Cornwall

Cornwall:- Church History

The established church in Cornwall is that of the Church of England, which is also called Anglican. For most historical purposes all baptisms, marriages and burials occurred in the Anglican parish churches. From the 17th century, Jews and Quakers were the only other sects permitted to be independant. In the early 19th century, Non-Conformists were gradually permitted to handle these affairs. About the same time, civil registration was also permitted.

• Anglican. The Truro Anglican Diocese was formed in 1876; before that time, Cornwall was part of the Diocese of Exeter. Information about the modern Truro Anglican Diocese is available. A list, with photographs, of the former and present Bishops of Truro is also available.
  • Ecclesiastical Administration. The ecclesiastical heirarchy of the Anglican church, with qualification relating to Cornwall, is as follows:
    • Diocese. The district under the jurisdiction of a Bishop. Cornwall was, for much of its time, under the jurisdiction of the Bishops of Exeter. In 1876, the Diocease of Truro was created. The Diocese covers the whole of Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly and two little parishes in Devon on the other side of the river Tamar. In addition to the Bishop of Truro, there is also a Suffragan Bishop of St Germans within the Truro Diocese.
    • Archdeaconry. An archdeaconry is the office or jurisdiction of an archdeacon and forms part of a diocese. Historically, there was always an Archdeacon of Cornwall when the county was in the See of Exeter; he is now in the See of Truro.
    • Deanery. The district under the jurisdiction of a Dean. There are 13 Deaneries in the Truro Diocese: Penwith, Kerrier, West Wivelshire, Isles of Scilly, Powder, Stratton, Carnmarth South, Trigg Minor & Bodmin, Trigg Major, East Wivelshire, Pydar, St Austell and Carnmarth North.
    • Parish. There are two types of parishes:
      • An ecclesiastical parish. The district under the jurisdiction of a priest (incumbant). The GENUKI parish pages, including those for Cornwall, are all of this type of parish. The parishes were very stable for a good 300 years before 1832. Parochial Church Councils (PCCs) were established in 1931, to assist in the day-to-day running of church business; before that the appointment of incumbants was dependant on Patronage.
      • A civil parish. The smallest unit of local government. These only came into being after 1832. All the GENUKI parish pages relate to the situation before this date, and so do not include civil parishes as such. However modern statistical information (such as population figures), referred to on these GENUKI pages, invariably comes from civil parish data.
    • Peculiar. A Peculiar is a parish or church which is exempt from the jurisdiction of the bishop in whose diocese it is located. There were several peculiars in Cornwall.
    • Chapelry. Literally, a Chapelry is the bounds or jurisdiction of a chapel. A parish may contain one or more chapelries, each of which may or may not have a licence to conduct Baptisms, Marriages and Burials. If the chapel did not have licence, then these ceremonies would be conducted at the parish church. Sometimes these are referred to as chapels-of-ease, since they were sited to help those who lived a long way from the parish church.
  • Parish Definition. The population of Cornwall originally lived in church parishes which were centred on the parish church. These ecclesiastical parishes were used both for administrative and well as religious purposes. In the first half of the 19th century, civil parishes were introduced as a unit of local government and many of the functions of church courts were taken over by the state. The ecclesiastical parishes still continue but purely for church organisational purposes. The civil parishes now have quite different boundaries and are controlled through the modern District Councils.
  • General Church History. Further information on Church History matters is available from GENUKI.
  
  
  
• Non-Conformists. The Wesleyan Association became the Free Methodists and, later in the 19th Century, joined with Bible Christians to form the United Free Methodist Church.
  • The names of the Methodist Circuits which covered Cornwall in 1851 are as follows:
    • The Wesleyan Methodist Circuits: St Agnes; St Austell; Bodmin; Callington; Camborne; Camelford; St Columb; Gwennap; Falmouth; Hayle; Helston; St Ives; St Just; St Keverne; Kilkhampton; Launceston; Liskeard; Marazion; St Mawes; Mevagissey; Newlyn East; North Hill; Penzance; Perranwell; Redruth; Isles of Scilly; Truro; Tuckingmill.
    • The Bible Christian Methodist Circuits: St Austell; St Columb; St Ervan; Falmouth & Penryn; Hayle; Helston; Hick's Mill; St Just; Kilkhampton; Launceston; Liskeard; Looe; Luxulyan; Mevagissey; Michaelstow; St Neot ; Padstow; Penzance; Porthleven; Redruth & Camborne; Isles of Scilly; Truro; Week St.Mary.
    • The Primitive Methodist Circuits: St Austell; Camborne; St Day; Falmouth; St Ives; Liskeard; Penzance; Redruth.
    • The Wesleyan Methodist Association Circuits: St Agnes; St Austell; Bodmin; Camborne; Camelford; Helston; Launceston; Penzance; Polperro; Redruth.
    • The Methodist New Connexion Circuits: St Ives; Penzance; Truro.
    • The Wesleyan Reform Union Methodist Circuits: St Just; Liskeard.
    Those chapels that were called Independent are actually Congregationalist and therefore not Methodist.
  • More information about the Methodist Circuits of Cornwall is available. During the course of cataloguing manuscript collections within the Methodist Archives, efforts were made to include biographical information about individuals mentioned in the papers and these were added as footnotes to the text of the printed lists. The list includes lay people and ministers/preachers from all the major British Methodist denominations since Wesley's day. It also contains information about people who were not necessarily Methodists, but who had interaction with them and are therefore mentioned in the collections.
  • Methodist baptisms for ALL Cornwall before 1837 have been transcribed by Sheila Towsend. However a considerable number are already included in the IGI and will be found in the Index under Town, Parish with the Circuit name. All the Methodist Registers that are held at Cornwall Record Office have been transcribed to c1900 and are available on CD.
  • Bible Christians. The Bible Christians (BC) were an off-shoot of Methodism founded by William O'Bryan in 1815. The movement can be traced to Shebbear in mid-Devon, but very soon BC chapels began to emerge all over Cornwall and North Devon. Their growth was mainly due to the evangelical passion as expressed in an earlier generation by the original Wesleyans. Their most famous member was Billy Bray, an alcoholic miner who experienced a dramatic conversion and went on to be a famous local preacher within the Duchy.
    The movement never reached the other parts of the UK although I believe that there were some chapels in the NE of England; but mainly because of the Cornish emigration during the latter part of the nineteenth century, Bible Christian communities emerged in North America (mainly Canada) and other parts of the world to where the Cornish went.
    In 1907, the Bible Christians became part of the United Methodist Church; which in turn joined with Wesleyan Methodism in 1932 to form the Methodist Church as it is now.
    Many of the Methodist churches in Cornwall and North Devon still have the Bible Christian name inscribed on their church buildings. Also in towns and villages of the two counties if there are several buildings that at one time would have been chapels, in most cases one would have probably been a Bible Christian one.
    The Bible Christian Project is collecting information on the founders of this movement and their descendants.
  • When one is searching for Non-Conformist baptisms it is imperative to know which denomination was active in the area of search. The book published by the Cornwall Record Office: Sources for Cornish Family History (ISBN 0 9023 19922), gives a good summary of the various denominations which were active in Cornwall, plus maps which indicate the areas that were covered by each Circuit.
    The Sources book, however, does not give a listing of the individual Non-Established Churches, chapels or meeting houses, that were in existence. The earliest consolidated information list for Cornwall is contained in the 1851 Record of Establishments Licensed for Worship, which was compiled at the same time as the census. These records have filmed by the Public Record Office as Ecclesiastical Returns reference: HO 129, a copy of which is held at Cornwall Record Office under reference: FS/2/93-95.
  • Paul Brewer and Gillian Thompson have compiled a list of some 800 Non-Conformist chapels that existed in Cornwall in 1851; GENUKI acknowledges their work which has been included into the GENUKI Church Database.
  
  
  
• Quakers. The Quaker FHS provides details of available Cornwall Quaker records.
  
  
• Plymouth Roman Catholic Diocese. Roman Catholic Churches in Cornwall are described and listed.

Present Day Churches in Cornwall. Many past churches in Cornwall, especially those built by Non-Conformists, have closed. There is a facility to find churches still extant in Cornwall. All churches remaining in Cornwall are reputed to be listed here.

Photographs of all the churches in Cornwall are available on-line.

Find a Church. You may also find it worthwhile searching in the GENUKI church database, which includes details of church/chapel dedications, church/chapel websites and, often, photographs of the churches/chapels.

Liturgical Calendar. A calendar of moveable and fixed feasts is available on-line.

Return to top of page

This county is maintained by Ian Argall with help and information provided by a number of assistants.

Are you lost in the GENUKI hierarchy or arrived here from a Search Engine?
If so, use the up-arrow(s) at the top of the page to go up the hierarchy.

Copyright and Disclaimer The information on the GENUKI (www.genuki.org.uk) website must not be used for commercial purposes, and all specific restrictions concerning usage, copyright notices, etc., that are to be found on individual information pages within GENUKI must be strictly adhered to. Violation of these rules could gravely harm the cooperation that GENUKI is obtaining from many information providers, and hence threaten its whole future. Whilst we take every care to keep the information on our web pages accurate, we disclaim any warranty or representation, express or implied about its accuracy, completeness or appropriateness for a particular purpose. Thus, you assume full responsibility for its use, and you understand and agree that neither GENUKI as an organisation nor any of its maintainers or providers are responsible or liable for any claim, loss or damage as a consequence. GENUKI contains many hyperlinks and directives to sites developed by others. They are provided for your convenience only. We do not control nor guarantee the accuracy, relevance, timeliness, or completeness of such sites, and in the event of a link to such a site being 'broken', or otherwise unavailable, our only recourse is to remove that link. Thank you for your cooperation. GENUKI is a registered trademark of the charitable trust GENUKI - see About GENUKI as an Organisation.