Margaret Ray, Research Volunteer at the Museum, looked into the history of Helston’s charters to celebrate the anniversary of Helston receiving its first charter on 15th April 1201 from King John.

Helston is rightly proud of holding many charters granting freedoms not experienced by other towns. A Royal charter issued by the crown granted rights or privileges to a group of people. In early medieval Britain charters often transferred land from donors to recipients.   

The First Charter

In 1201 King John granted the first of Helston’s charters:

Know ye that we have granted and by our present charter have confirmed that our borough of Helston be a free borough, and that our burgesses of the same town have a gild merchant, and quittance throughout our whole land from toll, pontage, passage, stallage, lastage, and soilage, saving, in all things, the liberties of the city of London.

This created the most westerly free borough with many privileges:

• Burgesses, who were the freemen or officials of the town, could own their land freehold;
• The borough could hold lucrative markets and fairs
•  A gild, or guild merchant, was established. This referred to a local group of merchants who acted as both controllers of trade in a town or city and a form of local government. Guild rules were incorporated into the charter and became law within the town.
• Tenants could hold land and houses independently rather than as peasants under slavery.
• Helston merchants were freed of tolls throughout England except London. These included pontage; bridge toll, passage; road toll, stallage; toll paid for a stall and lastage port duty. This was a unique privilege not given to any other Cornish borough.

We grant also to them that they not be compelled to plead, except within their own borough, of matters or tenements belonging to their town, except in pleas belonging to our Crown, and in pleas concerning lands outside the borough.

This meant that the people of Helston could be tried in their own courts, a privilege only revoked in 1990. For such privileges the town paid 40 marks silver and a palfrey (saddle horse) to King John.

Stannary Charters

King John also created a Stannary Charter in 1201. This legal document was granted to the tinners of Cornwall and Devon. It confirmed the right to search for tin on any land. In addition, only the Lord Warden of the Stannaries could arrest and judge the tinners if they broke the law.  Four stannary areas were created in Cornwall including one in the West which covered Kerrier and Penwith.

A further Stannary charter, specifically for Cornwall, was granted by Edward 1^st  in 1305. This designated Helston as one of Cornwall’s five coinage towns where tin was taxed and coined. The other towns were Lostwithiel, Bodmin, Liskeard and Truro. Tin was brought to the towns to be assayed or checked for quality. Each ingot was weighed and then a small piece was chiseled from the corner or coign in French. This little corner gave the name ‘coinage’.

Helston had a Coinage Hall in Coinage Hall Street, the main thoroughfare in the town, until its demolition in the 19^th century.

The charters strengthened the rights of Cornish tinners and recognised that they had a distinct identity. Tinners were not to be tried by ordinary common law courts but by independent Stannary courts with a jury of their own kind. Helston had a Stannary court by 1297. They were exempt from local taxation and made own laws through the Stannary Parliament, built at Lostwithiel in East Cornwall, which had six delegates from each of the four stannaries.

In 1337 The Duchy of Cornwall was established and control of the stannaries was passed to the Duchy as were taxes raised through coinage. Stannary law covered the whole of Cornwall.

The downside

In 1298, under Edward 1^st, every chartered borough was required to send two burgesses to London to attend a council which later developed into Parliament. Whilst this appeared to be an honour it was a long, expensive and dangerous journey to London often requiring the burgesses to stay there for weeks at their own expense. To reduce the expense and time, boroughs often combined to send one representative. Until 1832 Great Reform Act, Helston sent two representatives, Members of Parliament, whilst places such as Manchester and Birmingham had none. But Helston was much richer, due to tin, than those areas.

This article was written to celebrate the 825th anniversary of Helston receiving its first charter on 15th April 1201 from King John. The museum holds a range of objects relating to the towns civic history.