Footprints of Former Men in Far CornwallHawker, Robert Stephen
History
Footprints of Former Men in Far Cornwall
Hawker, Robert Stephen
Cornwall (England : County) -- History
Where, too, is now the garden’s beauty fled,
Which every clime was ransacked to supply?
On the dread spot see desolation spread,
And the dismantled walls in ruin lie.
Along the terrace walks are straggling seen
The thickly bramble and the noisome weed,
Beneath whose covert crawls the toad obscene,
And snakes and adders unmolested breed.”
FOOTNOTE:
[164] The cedar wainscot which lined the chapel is said to have been
bought out of a Spanish prize, and the carving is mentioned by Defoe,
in his “Western Tour,” as the work of Michael Chuke, and not inferior
to Gibbon’s. (C. S. Gilbert, “Survey of Cornwall,” vol. ii. p. 554.)
APPENDIX F (p. 123)
CRUEL COPPINGER
BY R. PEARSE CHOPE
The real Coppinger, around whose name Mr. Hawker has woven such a
fascinating legend, has been identified by the Rev. S. Baring-Gould,
in a footnote to his account of “The Vicar of Morwenstow” (edit. 1899,
p. 113), with an Irishman of that name, having a wife at Trewhiddle,
near St. Austell, by whom he had a daughter, who married a son of Lord
Clinton. However, there can be little doubt that the Coppinger Mr.
Hawker had in his mind lived nearer at hand, in the adjoining parish
of Hartland, where several of these tales, together with others of a
similar nature, are still told about him. His name was Daniel Herbert
Coppinger or Copinger, and he was wrecked, probably at Welcombe Mouth,
the end of the romantic glen which separates Welcombe from Hartland, on
December 23rd, 1792. He was hospitably received and entertained, not by
Mr. Hamlyn, but by Mr. William Arthur, another yeoman farmer, at Golden
Park in Hartland. While there he scratched the following inscription
on a window-pane, which was preserved for many years, but has now
disappeared:--
“D. H. Coppinger, shipwrecked December 23rd, 1792; kindly received
by Mr. Wm. Arthur.”
In the following year he married Ann Hamlyn, the elder of the two
daughters of Mr. Ackland Hamlyn, of Galsham, and his wife Ann, who was
one of the last of the ancient and gentle family of Velly of Velly,
a family which had held a prominent position in the parish for at
least five hundred years. The marriage is thus entered in the parish
register:--
“Daniel Herbert Coppinger of the King’s Royal Navy and Ann Hamlyn
mar^d (by licence) 3 Aug.”
Far from being “a young damsel,” the bride was of the mature age of
forty-two. Two years later her sister, Mary, was married to William
Randal, but there is no record or local tradition of any issue from
either marriage. What rank Coppinger held in the Navy is not known, but
his name does not appear in the lists of commissioned officers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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