By the time this newsletter reaches members the Christmas and New Year festivities will be over and I hope many will be looking forward to the February conference and the rest of our activities for 2010.
My task at this time is to report on a number of ‘retirements’ from the committee and to thank our officers for all their hard work in keeping our administration up-todate. It is also a pleasure to welcome new members to the committee.
I am particularly anxious to thank Tony
Wood for his contribution to the work and growth of our association. Over the past year, he has been a very supportive vicechairman as well as taking on the job of events secretary.
Our other administrative officers, Joan
Webb, Hugh Hedderly and Barbara Brown, have always been on hand to answer enquiries. Pam Lomax and Robert Lyle are to be congratulated on the quality of the journal and newsletter. Rob is also taking on the management of our website.
To those retiring members of the committee, we are all grateful for the service which you have given over the years.
It is time now to say ‘welcome’ to the new members of the committee, John and Hilary
Ballard particularly in taking over as joint events secretaries, and to John St Brioc
Hooper and Ros Prigg., who bring much experience gained from the other organisations in which they have been, or still are, involved.
www.calh.co.uk
And finally, may I wish you all a very happy
2010 .
Your Chairman
Colin Edwards
( 01872) 501-727
th
or
Study days are an important and popular benefit of CALH membership. However, it is very important that if you book a place
- Joanna Mattingly you show up or contact the organiser as far day this summer, nearly one-third of those who had booked failed to appear and it left the host with a red face and many pasties.
- Stephen Tyrrell anyone else from getting a place. Please be
- Sarah Paston Williams
Lute Music – Brian Wright
Are you interested in local research on literary
, P
- The Sealed Knot
& Members Input Sessions
Newquay
(See enclosed booking form)

A unique program designed to help people interested in local and family history learn how to get started in such projects has had an extremely successful launch in Cornwall.
Starting in the St. Austell and Falmouth libraries last autumn, the hands-on program showed the vast array of free to access services that are available to the budding historian, locally and on-line.
With funding from the government’s
Learning Revolution Transformation Fund and Cornwall Council, the test program called “Whose History is it Anyway,” was organised by the Cornwall Library, Archives, and Adult Education Services.
In addition to visits to the CRO, participants met with local historians and visited local historic attractions.
With little advertising, 21 people applied for just 8 places in St. Austell.
This spring, the program will be rolled out in Bodmin, Newquay and St. Ives.
Local and family historians interested in offering to assist in teaching others how to do it can ring 0300 1234 111 or e-mail bodmin.library@cornwall.gov.uk
or newquay.library@cornwall.gov.uk
.
Under a budget cutting program, the
National Archives in Kew will now be closed on Monday. New opening hours
Tuesday through Saturday are: Tuesdays and
Thursdays, 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Wednesdays,
Fridays and Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
In addition there will now be a charge for car parking, the amount based on government vehicle emissions standards.
Make sure to check with the Kew web site before travelling to London to check for any last minute www.nationalarchives.co.uk
. changes:
th
The Cornish Audio Visual Archive (CAVA) will be marking its 10 th anniversary in 2010 with a series of seminars workshops and exhibitions throughout the year.
CAVA Director Dr. Garry Tregidga says the events will explore some of the key collections established in the archives first decade, including mining, Methodism, farming, family history and community history (notably the China Clay and Tamar
Valley areas). CAVA will be producing a series of edited CDs relating to these themes which will also be available on the new website – www.cornishstory.com
.
The seminars and exhibitions will be held at
Kresenn Kernow in Redruth. In addition, there will be a conference studying the music, dance and storytelling of Cornwall.
Tregidga says a new annual publication will be launched. The first volume of the CAVA
Studies Series will focus on the cultural landscapes of Cornish identity, with future volumes planned on film history, music and sport.
CAVA was created by the Institute of
Cornish Studies at Tremough in partnership with Cornwall Centre, the CRO, the College of St. Mark & St. John and the Rescorla
Centre to preserve audio-visual collections relating to Cornwall. It also aims to become the leading research and learning centre for oral history, film studies & performing arts.
For updates on the seminars, exhibitions and workshops, check the CAVA webpage
– www.cava-studies.org
or the CALH webpage – www.calh.com
. Dr. Garry
Tregidga’s e-mail: cava@exeter.ac.uk
.
More than 60 maps depicting plantations, fortifications and townships in Ireland during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I
(c1558-1610) are now available online from the National Archives at www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/documentsonl ine/irishmaps.asp
.

The webpage for CALH- . www.calh.co.uk
- is still not up to the standard we want – a sudden death in the family of the man who is our technical advisor/assistant pushed back a number of upgrades we intended to implement this autumn.
However, it remains an excellent source of up-do-date information on CALH events and a place to read the newsletter before the printed version arrives in the post.
The on-line version of the newsletter also includes any updates or corrections that have been made after the printed version is run off.
If you would prefer to just download your newsletter (and save CALH the cost of postage), please advise our membership
Brown: secretary burhills@tesco.net
.
Barbara
You can now search and download 164 volumes of logbooks of the Royal Navy’s voyages of scientific discovery between 1751 and 1864 (in addition to the logs of the
‘Morning’ in 1904). Many famous officers kept logs held in this collection at the
National Archives, including James Cook m commanded the mutinous Bounty.
Of course, information on the less famous of those who were the explorers at sea can be extremely valuable for both family and local historians.
It costs £2 to download a journal or log. www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/document sonline/shipsonexploration.asp
Got an idea for this year’s AGM program or next year’s conference? Pass it along to our events secretary: ballard91@btinternet.com
The Cornwall Record Office will be closed from Monday, 25 th January until Friday,
5 th February to enable essential strong room maintenance to take place. It will also provide staff with the opportunity to improve access to uncatalogued collections.
Most of us have used the CRO so often for our research we don’t realise that many people know nothing about Cornwall’s renowned archives.
To get a peek behind the scenes at the record office, which holds documents dating from the 12 th century, groups from 8 to 30 can take a standard tour for a donation of at least £30 to the document purchase fund.
Tailor-made tours can be arranged for groups requiring a more customised experience for a donation of at least £40.
Tours can be arranged on Mondays or weekday evenings. They include a behindthe-scenes look at the thousands of maps, photographs, plans, parchment documents and volumes containing information on local families and their estates, businesses, churches and villages.
The record office can also supply professional staff to speak to organisations on a variety of archive related topics.
Contact: cro@cornwall.gov.uk
telephone: 01872 323127. or
A gazetteer of over 700 Cornish manors in nearly 200 parishes has been compiled by the CRO and is now available online. Beginning in the 14 th century, the publication is a basic guide to the location of manors in
Cornwall – by manor name and by ancient parish: www.cornwall.gov.uk/default.aspx?page=22
518

14 January (Thurs) – CALH Committee meeting, CRO Truro – 5:00 p.m.
6-7 February (Sat-Sun) – CALH Annual
Conference – 17 th Century Kernow –
Kilbirnie Hotel, Newquay (Booking form enclosed)
1 March (Mon) – CALH Spring Journal
Deadline – PamLomax@aol.com
15 April - (Thurs) – CALH Committee meeting, CRO Truro – 5:00 p.m
15 May (Sat) - CALH Day Out –
Luxulyan and Luxulyan Valley featuring
Hazel Harradence, Stephen Austin & Chris
Tigg. Meet at village hall – 10:15 a.m.
(Booking form enclosed)
19 June (Sat) – CALH Day Out –
Constantine - (Booking form with spring journal.)
1 July (Thurs) – CALH Committee meeting, CRO Truro – 5:00 p.m.
23 October (Sat) – CALH AGM &
Program. (Details to follow).
(Lectures start at 7:00 p.m. in the Community
Room, Richard Lander School, Gloweth, Truro unless otherwise noted. Contact: Jim Lewis: jlewis@lineone.net
.)
29 January (Fri) – Money & Power in 18 th
Century Britain – Dr. Ann Murphy,
University of Exeter in Cornwall.
26 February (Fri) – Waste in the Making
of the Modern World – Dr. Tim Cooper,
University of Exeter in Cornwall.
26 March (Fri) – “The Popish Plot”:
Politics, Religion and the Press in the late 17 th Century – Dr. Peter Hinds,
University. Of Plymouth.
15-28 January (Fri-Thurs) – Cornish Book
Sale – Bargains on ex-library stock in a grand sale – Cornwall Centre, Redruth.
25 January – 5 February (Mon-Fri) - CRO –
Closed for strong room maintenance and improving access to uncataloged collections.
24 February (Wed) - CAVA Begins 10 th
Anniversary Celebrations – topic to be announced, CC Redruth – 2:30 p.m.
26 April (Mon) – CAVA Seminar – topic to be announced, CC Redruth – 2:30 p.m.
7-19 June (Mon-Sat) – Exhibition by
Diversity, a collective of Cornish Artists,
CC Redruth.
30 June (Wed) – CAVA Seminar – topic to be announced, CC Redruth – 2:30 p.m.
(Pre-booking advised or essential at: enquiries@royalcornwallmuseum.org.uk )
28 January (Thurs) – Photographer Nik
Strangelove talks on photos of significant
Cornish landmarks – 1-2 p.m.
4 February (Thurs) – Polite & Commercial
Arts: 18 th Century Painting in the RIC
Collection – Prof. Jason Whittaker – 1-2 p.m
.
13 May (Thurs) – Earth & Timber
Structures in Cornwall – Cornish
Architect Matt Robinson – 1-2 p.m.
27 July (Tues) – Archaeology of Cornwall
from the Air – Steve Hartgroves,
Cornwall’s Principal Archaeologist – 1-2 p.m.
29 July (Thurs) – Recent Discoveries in
Prehistoric Cornwall – James Gossip,
Archaeologist - 1-2 p.
Newsletter Editor: Robert Lyle rhl@lylespride.com