Julia Webb-Harvey, museum volunteer and Citizen Curator, continues the Under the Eaves story investigating the provenance and stories of donors to the old Camborne Museum.

Under the Eaves began out of a curiosity to understand better some of the objects in the museum’s collections from a decolonising perspective. In a way, I have been asking questions of the objects themselves – such as where they came from and how they came to be in here. This has been a fascinating journey, through the stories of the objects and the people who donated them to us here at the museum. The story associated with Canon Carah has taken the longest to unpick, partly because I started a PhD, but partly because it took a while to locate any objects. This story, if you like, begins with a record card, as shown in the photograph below.

It is one of a series of cards stating that objects donated by Canon Carah were from Jerusalem and Hebron, today in Israel. I came across these record cards at the time when I was in the middle of the story of the museum’s Egyptian artefacts, learning about Amelia Edwards and the work that she had begun with the Egypt Exploration Foundation to stop the pillaging of ancient sites in Egypt. I wondered just how Canon Carah had come across objects like this tear bottle (and other small vessels). There are record cards for lamps, ‘found’ in Hebron and Jerusalem. It’s an odd verb to use. Quite what does ‘found’ mean? It was at a time when Antiquarians went abroad in pursuit of ‘ancient’ history, collecting objects as trophies of their adventures, not necessarily with permission, at a time when this was normalised in society. Today, we view things differently.

To make matters more complicated for us, the objects were part of the collection transferred from Camborne Museum, so have ended up in boxes, unopened for years. As this is published, these archaeological objects still haven’t been located, but then we haven’t been through all the boxes transferred from Camborne. It hasn’t stopped the work on trying to work out exactly who Canon Carah was and why might he have donated objects to the museum. In this article, the focus is on who he was, and the next one will link back to the objects in the museum’s collection.

Who was Rev. Canon James Sims Carah?

Reverend Canon James Sims Carah (1861 – 1936) was, in some ways, an extraordinary sounding man. He was a great Antiquarian, a leading figure of the ‘Old Cornwall’ movement, active in the community (in service to the Camborne Free Library) as well as his significant role in the Anglican church.

It’s a combination of all of these roles that means some of his valued items have made it to Helston, via the Camborne collection. I have been trying to piece together fragments about him, aspects of his career and interests, in order to build up a picture of him. I have found traces of him in newspapers, from articles online, from my own examination of his meticulous records in the archives, and as important, a visit to Trinity Church in Penponds, near Camborne. There are a couple of photographs of him in circulation. This one was taken at the Penponds vicarage.

A man of Camborne

Canon Carah was a proud Cornishman. We know this, not only because it was reported in the newspapers, but because of the things he did. Canon Carah was a founding member of Camborne Old Cornwall Society, founded in 1923, and their first president. He was interested in local antiquity as well as antiquities from farther afield. He was made a Bard of Gorsedh Kernow in its foundation year in 1928 as ‘Gwas Crowan’, friend of Crowan, the parish south of Camborne – he was born in the village of Praze, also in the parish, in 1861. In 1929 Canon Carah wrote Cornwall for the Gorsedh, to a tune of Old Cornish Carol.

There is a County in the west –
The dear old land of Cornwall
It is the land we love the best –
Our homeland – joy land – Cornwall.

The land of fish, of copper, tin,
The land of glorious beauty –
Of cliffs and skies and seas than win
The hearts of all in Cornwall.

Our forebears loved their countryside
The sea girt* land of Cornwall.
Their sons are scattered far and wide
But Home does still mean Cornwall.

Its flowers, birds, its value of rest
Are things of wondrous beauty
They are the “best of the best,”
To all the sons of Cornwall.

Its motto – “One and All!” is one
For every child of Cornwall
God keep us true ‘till life before.
God bless our County – Cornwall.
(*Girt – great, in rural dialect)

According to The Cornishman, Canon Carah was a “tactful chair” of the Library Committee in Camborne. This, I believe, warrants further consideration. Tehmina Goskar, our Art Fund Headley Fellow, wrote about the library and its fascinating history. I like the idea of these worthy men of Camborne wanting to usher out the “billiard tables and all its attitudes” and instead uphold the Victorian values of education and propriety.

It is all the more remarkable because Reverend Carah (at this time), was in the minority of the great and the good of Camborne as a High Anglican. Tehmina and I visited Kresen Kernow in August 2022, and we talked to archivist David Thomas about Camborne of the early 1900s. There were 32 chapels (Methodist), and four Anglican churches, one of which was Catholic. The politics that spilled into everyday life because of this division should not be underestimated, and I think underlines the comment by The Cornishman as ‘tactful’.

It was whilst researching another Cornish (actually he was a Devon man) reverend that I first read about the contest for souls between church and chapel. This earlier research related to Reverend Hawker, vicar of St Morwenna’s church in Morwenstow 1834-1875. Hawker is famed for his outlandish dress, Hawker’s Hut (the smallest property in the National Trust’s portfolio) and his poetry. Indeed, it is his verse The Song of the Western Men that the Cornish adopted as their anthem, Trelawny. Not bad for a Devon-born man!

On his arrival in Morwenstow, Hawker had an uphill battle to change the ways of the unruly Cornish, who saw it as their right to claim salvage or wreckage for the ships tossed on their shores. The Cornish child’s prayer at the time was said to be “God Bless Father ‘n Mother, ‘nd zend a ship ta shore ‘vore mornin.’’ Eight years after his arrival, Hawker had his first test in mending the ways of his flock.

The Caledonian was wrecked in 1842, and Hawker had work trying to stop his parishioners from plundering the ship for fuel. All but one of the crew perished. Hawker supplemented the reward to retrieve the washed-up bodies so that the lost souls could be given Christian burial, and not end up in the burial ground of the Methodist Chapel in Bude. Over the years of his ministry, Hawker became fixated on trying to save ships caught in storms from being wrecked. When this failed, he turned to the torturous process of recovering bloated, mangled bodies from his shores. It became something of a passion and contributed to his reputation as eccentric.

Church rivalries

These narratives played out when Canon Carah was at Penponds. He was reported to have wanted a photograph of the Holy Trinity improvements, and indeed himself, but refused to give the business to a Methodist image-maker. H. D. Wootton of Redruth was awarded the job.

There is something of these church rivalries within the village of Penponds itself. On my first visit in April 2022 to try and discover something of Canon Carah, I found Holy Trinity locked up. It seemed a sad indictment of the times, but I wondered perhaps if it had something to do with the antiquities that he left for the church. It rather forced my attention to the exterior, in trying to work out where the extensions had been made, and what I might glean from my wandering. It struck as a large plot of land, right on the edge of the village, with the church itself also large for such a small village. Canon Carah certainly made his impact on the entrance to the church. I was impressed, and moved, by the memorial to those lost during World War One (1914-18).

The church felt well-cared for, in a beautiful setting, the grass strewn with wildflowers and a pale-pink camellia still in bloom. There was no visible sign of Canon Carah; I didn’t know whether he would be buried there. I’ve since learned that he was buried in Crowan, Gwas Crowan had gone home.

Contrast this splendid building and setting with the crumbling former-Methodist chapel butted up against a railway bridge. Surrounded by tall metal fencing, it was in a sorry state. It had been sold at auction in 2018, with permission to convert to a dwelling, but the only things living in it appeared to be pigeons. It looked to have had the soul pulled out of it. What was interesting was that its granite datestone was inscribed Bible Christians: 1844. This is the same year that the foundation stone was laid for Holy Trinity, finally consecrated in 1854 by the Lord Bishop of Exeter. Perhaps, rather like Hawker competing for the souls of the dead, the churches in Penponds were rivals for the living.

The improvements to Penponds Church

Reverend James Sims Carah led an impressive campaign to raise funds for improvements and an extension to the church. In its obituary, the Western Morning Press stated that Canon Carah raised £4,500 for the renovation. This is an incredible amount of money, particularly during wartime when funds and resources were also demanded elsewhere.

There are some things about this project that reveal something of Canon Carah’s character. It was an ambitious project, and one that took many, many years to realise. I think it’s safe to say that he was a man of ambition, and he was persistent. I also think he was a little maverick. The archives relating to Holy Trinity, Penponds at Kresen Kernow, dated 1935, show that approval by Faculty was granted after the improvement had taken place. There is a retrospective sign-off by the Bishop of Truro, where it was lodged at the Registry. Canon Carah applied for permission retrospectively!

The account books maintained by Canon Carah and his wardens also reveal some insights into the narrative of the church, and of the man himself. There were two ledgers that I looked through, the Special Funds account book and the Churchwarden’s Offertsory Account and Churchyard Records on my second visit, in November 2022. Both had browning pages, accounts maintained in ink-pen, colour now fading to brown. The pages themselves smelled fusty, and ever so slightly of pipe-smoke.

Firstly, it is worth putting the fund-raising in context. I scanned a few of the years for the ordinary years – in 1916/17 the annual income/costs of running the church was £67.14.01/2 ; in 1917/18 it was £80.19.61/2 ; and in 1925/6 it was £125.8.8. That he raised £4,500 over the period is an incredible achievement against this level of what we might think of as annual income.

Secondly, the records are immaculate. I am sure if I had the job, there would have been crossings out and blots marking the pages. At the end of each year, or type of special fund, Canon Carah would sign off with the words, “Laus Deo!” a kind of flourish. Thanks to Twitter, this has been translated as “Praise be to God!” I originally read that scratchy imprint as “Laus Bro,” which someone of Twitter suggested might lean towards “May I be praised!” This didn’t feel incongruous for the ambitious, persistent Canon Carah.

The records themselves reveal something of the story of the restoration, as well as other activities of the church. It seems that the reverend developed aspects of the project as they went, and then employed tradespeople to carry out the work. Perhaps there was an overall scheme at the beginning, but work was engaged on an ongoing basis.

Many of the contributions came from subscriptions, or as David Thomas put it, by Canon Carah pressing on the goodwill of the spinsters of the parish. These subscriptions were topped up by Church events, such as bazaars. In the early days, “pence in lavatory” was added to the extension fund, although that doesn’t seem to have lasted for many years.

In 1918, some of the special funds were used to give Christmas presents to the soldiers and sailors of the parish. They each received 5/2 (five shillings and tuppence). It was from the special funds that the money was raised for the monument in the front porch, Great Sacrifice.

In 1921, the accounts record the Sunday School Outing, which looks to have been a railway outing plus teas. We have no idea where they went, but a note in Canon Carah’s handwriting informs us that it had been, “a glorious day, about 120 present.” The total costs, balanced perfectly (Laus Deo!) were for £16.6.8. Also in 1921 was the “Vicar’s 25th Anniversary at Penponds” with its own entry in the ledger. There was tea and cake but also Camborne Town Band, paid for personally by Carah at a cost of £2.0.0.

One of the aspects of the restoration that is most noted is the bench ends on the wooden pews, designed by Canon Carah himself. In an extraordinary flourish of journalism, The Cornishman describes Canon Carah as being driven by “service and beauty… those twin lights that guided him in his work of beautifying the church, and the bench-ends.” I felt it was time to see the improvements for myself.

I met with Philip Gilbert, Church Warden of Holy Trinity Church, at the church in early December 2022. It was a delightful visit, and he could not have been more helpful and welcoming. They had just finished a fish and chip lunch, the church was warm, and there was a soundtrack of gentle choral music, including some carols. It was wonderful to see the interior of the church and tease out what impact Canon Carah had on the church. Philip showed me an old photograph, taken in 1897, which shows the church before Canon Carah’s vision of beautification was implemented. It is a remarkable transformation.

It is beyond the scope of this research to recreate the sequence of improvements and renovations (although my curiosity is piqued!), but the impact he made is extraordinary to witness and appreciate. The exquisite bench ends, the wooden carved statues, the altar piece and the tryptich of the pulpit. The stained-glass windows are remarkable, one dedicated to his parents.

When I asked about the objects from his travels, Philip was able to show me a beautiful carved wooden object, on display by one of the northern windows of the church. He thought it to be from the Low Countries, Belgium or Holland, with other donated objects possibly from this region too. There were no objects from the middle east, as have ended up in the museum’s collection. We both agreed we rather needed archivist David Thomas to write the story in full. It remains a puzzle, for now.

As noted above, Canon Carah is not buried in the churchyard at Penponds, but he is memorialised in the church. The photograph of him, in his boatman’s hat, hangs in the vestry along with pictures of reverends past. There is also a memorial stone at a slender stained-glass window, near the pulpit. It reads, “In memory of Canon J S Carah / Vicar 1896 – 1935 / During whose long / ministry / this church / was beautified to the / Glory of God.”

There is no longer anyone alive in the congregation at Holy Trinity that remembers him personally, but his legacy is keenly felt. His fascination for antiquity, his love of the arts, his meticulous natures mean that his impact will be felt in Penponds, and in the wider community of Camborne. As a collector and donor, we have his legacy in Cornish culture recorded at the museum.

JWH.