Research Curator, Tehmina Goskar gives an update on our farming heritage research project.

In April 2023 we began work on our conservation and contemporary documentation project, Farmers will like it, in earnest thanks to funding by the Museums Association Esmée Fairbairn Collections Fund. We named our project after a headline in the newspapers describing the launch and opening of this museum on 19 September 1949.

Our collections pod have started work reviewing our farming collections, using our existing catalogues, including historic registers, card indexes and of course, our Modes collections management database.

Customs, sports, supply chains provided by the railways, providing veterinary care to animals, are all part of joining the dots in our wonderful collection of Cornish folk history.

We have identified approximately 1000 objects and photographs related to Cornish agriculture, growing and processing such as dairy, their people and customs dating from the 1890s to 1980s. Looking outside the traditional ‘agriculture’ museum classification was our starting point as we know that evidence of farming life and its impact on communities and landscape go far wider than this label traditionally permits. Customs, sports, supply chains provided by the railways, providing veterinary care to animals, are all part of joining the dots in our wonderful collection of Cornish folk history.

Calling a spade a spade

Throughout this project we are looking to highlight the people and produce involved in the processes that are evidenced by the collection. We generated a list of keywords that might occur in records that do not specifically reference ‘farming’ or ‘agriculture’, such as these:

• Livestock
• Picking
• Market
• Daffodils
• Bees
• Oats
• Barley
• Furze
• Arable
• Dairy
• Beef
• Sheep
• Wool
• Gleaning
• Slaughter
• Milk
• Fertiliser
• Harvest
• Silage
• Cider
• Trowel
• Cereal
• Tug o’war
• Crying the neck
• Corn dolly
• Young farmers
• Feast

Flowers and folk beliefs

More detailed research is underway on the origins of the Royal Cornwall Show and its possible relationship to the social unrest of the late 18^th century, on the conveyance of farming goods especially flowers by the Helston Railway, on documented harvest time traditions before the introduction of the Crying of the Neck by the Old Cornwall Society in the 1920s, and on the folk beliefs around bullock’s hairballs or ‘bezoars’ (we have a number in the collection). We have also joined up with external researchers such as Harriet Gendall and her work on the Cornish oat or pillas, and other research on the management of furze on moorland, and on the work of lesbian farmers in the 1970s reported in Outback magazine, documented thanks to Queer Kernow.

You will find many historic agricultural objects on display in the Meat Market – the central part of the museum building which opened in 1983. The project has helped us take a closer look at objects that we otherwise pass by, from the gigantic arrish rake, used to clear the stubble after the corn harvest, to the equally giant scythe or reaper used to harvest and bundle grass, wheat, barley, oats and other cereals by hand. One of our most endearing photographs in our collection is entitled “old St Keverne Friend,” believed to be William Lory of Trevalsoe Farm who is carrying one of these scythes – who knows maybe even the one we have on display – around 1900.

Since mechanisation after the First World War, working the land by hand has become a distant and fading memory. Speaking of which, we are grateful to have received from Cornish farmer Stephen Ellis a generous donation to our reference library of a whole set of The Standard Cyclopedia of Modern Agriculture and Rural Economy, 1911. This resource will enrich our research no end. Using sources that are near contemporary to the objects you are researching is invaluable especially when you don’t already have innate expert knowledge (which I do not).

Dealing with dangers

The biggest motivation for raising funds for this project was our concern about the long-term damage caused by pests, especially woodworm. Naturally, agricultural objects, especially the hafts of tools such as shovels and hoes, wooden panels on threshing and winnowing machines and giant cider presses, are perfect mansions for woodworm to thrive. This is especially the case when they are housed in historic granite market buildings with no insulation and a very Cornish climate (mild and damp).

It is evident that many of these objects, not least the famous cider press, came to the museum with their undesirable residents as they were often rescued from barns where they had been languishing for many years. Unfortunately many objects entered the collection at a time when knowledge about pest management and the importance of quarantining any object made of organic or biological materials before putting them on display or in store.

The funding from this project helped us to commission David Lough from Historyonics to spend a day with us in September to survey the collection and point out where our problem areas lie. We will be undertaking some preventive conservation over the course of Spring 2024 (just before the little critters wake up from their winter slumber) in public so do come and take a look at this work which usually happens behind the scenes.

How should we preserve modern farming heritage?

It was a pleasure earlier in December to join the Rural Museums Network for their webinar on the challenges of contemporary collecting for museums specialising in farming and agriculture. Like most museums we have no space for tractors or combine harvesters and even if we did, is that really the best place to preserve examples of mechanised, and increasingly robotic and automated farming machines?

There was a brilliant discussion at the webinar which shared a consensus that perhaps museums were not the best place to take this on and perhaps we have a more important role to preserve farm machinery, farmers and their experiences in a more documentary way, such as via photography, field notes and film. These were, after all, the original methods used by early folk history museums. These are the techniques we will adopt to take a snapshot of Cornish farming today, in all of its diversity, focusing as much as possible on capturing the lives and trevails of the people who sow, plant, pick and harvest, especially those usually invisible in our stories: women, seasonable labourers including migrant workers, young farmers, hidden processors of dairy such as clotted cream and cheese makers and makers of dairy-free produce such as oat milk.

Cultivating a network of farmer-curators

One of the first things I wanted to ensure is that we were not the only decision-makers of what we should collect, preserve and document. Largely thanks to the power of word of mouth in our local community, I got speaking with Peter Ferris, a retired farmer and President of Helston Old Cornwall Society. Peter kindly put me in touch with an active local farmer, Martin Wallis of Penventon Farm near Helston, and with whom I had the pleasure of speaking about the realities of running a profitable family farm near Helston. Through other farming networks, farmers such as Stephen Ellis came in to donate his grandfathers old encyclopaedias (mentioned above).

If you are a farmer with an interest in research and farming history do get in touch on the email address below or phone the museum.

A tribute to Brindley Hosken

Brindley Hosken of Withan Farm on the Lizard came in on a number of occasions to discuss how best we could document farming today and in the recent past. Brindley had written two books based on his experience of farming in Cornwall over the last 50 years, Cows and Catastrophies, and Up Long Meadow which we try and stock in our shop but which keeps selling out! With great sadness and suddenness, Brindley passed away on 10 October 2023 of a massive heart attack at his farm. His funeral took place at the Central Methodist Church in Helston on 25 October.

We were privileged, as a museum, to benefit from his knowledge and warmth and look forward to ensuring his legacy to Cornish farming heritage continues.

Want to help do some research from home?

We are looking for people who have a love of doing research remotely online to help us find out more about some of the really interesting objects and photographs related to farming in our collection. If you have expertise or an interest in any of the following fields, please get in touch, or we’d love to hear from you with your own suggestion based on the museum’s collections:

• Carts and wagons, including models
• Farming photographs, including focusing on work wear (clothing)
• Man traps, their uses to manage land and the violence and injuries of others
• Bronze Age farming in Cornwall (based on archaeological finds)
• Veterinary history in Cornwall
• Dairy, cream and cheese histories especially clotted
• Games and contests by farmers e.g. tug o’ war
• Lesser known Cornish farming customs and traditions, beliefs and superstitions
• Extinct or rare Cornish breeds of animals and plants
• Unusual modes of farming and farm-like activity such as gleaning, growing, kitchen gardens

In the first instance contact Research Curator Dr. Tehmina Goskar: tehmina@museumofcornishlife.co.uk