The popular legends of St. Blaze relate that he was most barbarously
lacerated with wool-combs, which sufficiently accounts for his having
been adopted as the patron of all persons concerned in the manufacture
of cloth.
There is an idle tradition of the exact spot where St. Blaze landed;
but it is quite certain that he never was in the west of Europe; nor
can any reason now be assigned for the selection of this saint, beyond
that of his general popularity. About the year 1774 a curious piece of
machinery was exhibited all over England, which represented the whole
manufacture of broadcloth, from the shearing of the wool to the last
operation of pressing. A small figure was actually at work on each
separate process; and over them all, as a general director, and
arrayed in his pontifical habit and mitre, appeared Bishop Blaze. He
is the patron of Ragusa.
The derivation of Carlyon from Richard Cœur de Lion, seems to be
equally puerile, unfounded, and absurd. Car, or Caer, is evidently a
fortified place; and Lyon must be one of those corruptions, more
common than any other, of a word which has lost its appropriate
meaning, into another word of a similar sound and in common use. The
arms of Carlyon are, Argent, a chevron Gules between three moor cocks
Sable, limbed and wattled Gules.
In modern times St. Blazey has acquired distinction by giving birth to
Ralph Allen, known over England as Mr. Allen of Bath. This gentleman
acquired a large fortune through the medium of conferring important
benefits on his country, and he employed it in promoting literature
and sciences on the most extensive scale. Pope, Swift, Arbuthnot, Gay,
were the inmates of his house. Warburton was mainly through his
influence advanced to the highest station in our church. And,
On all occasions was his hand held forth
At pity’s call to succour modest worth.
This extraordinary man was the son of an innkeeper in a village on the
road-side, called St. Blazey Highway. He is stated by Mr. Polwhele to
have been placed under the care of his grandmother, who kept the
post-office at St. Columb; and that an inspector was so much struck by
the neatness and regularity of young Allen’s accounts as to procure
for him some situation in a more extensive establishment. It is
probable that he must have been placed in the post office at Bath. Mr.
Polwhele adds that he was there patronised by General Wade.
Previously to this period, letters were conveyed along certain great
roads emanating from the capital, but without any communication one
with the other. Mr. Allen first conceived the idea of uniting these
lines by what has been termed cross posts, and Bath became the
original station of this most important contrivance, which has now
expanded itself over the whole country like the meshes of a net,
affording such facility and speed as to astonish those who experience
their benefit, and which could not have been hoped for in times past.
It is much to be lamented that the progress of Mr. Allen, from the
commencement of his career in this most interesting pursuit, up to the
attainment of his object by its complete establishment at Bath cannot
be traced; nor the source ascertained from whence his funds were
derived. It appears that Mr. Allen risked the chance of taking the
revenues to be derived from his new institution for a term of years,
at a certain annual payment to the State; or, in official language,
that he farmed them; and his success proved commensurate to the
ability, exertion, and persevering industry employed in carrying the
plan into effect: so that on the expiration of the first term, a
renewal was taken at an advanced rent of some tens of thousands
a-year.
Mr. Allen fixed himself at Bath, and built the splendid mansion of
Prior Park with the oolite of that district, or Bath stone, which he
first quarried on an extensive scale and brought into general use. At
Prior Park every man distinguished in any way was a welcome guest, and
the proprietor has received most justly, deserved tributes of applause
from many capable of erecting monuments to his memory more durable
than those of brass or stone; but one frequently noticed has ever
appeared to me inadequate. It does indeed represent the image of a
private gentleman, endowed with goodness of heart, some learning, and
a tolerable judgment; but if Mr. Fielding’s Allworthy was really meant
to pourtray Mr. Allen, one may seek in vain for any resemblance of a
man, who, by energy of mind and indefatigable exertions conferred so
great a benefit on his country, that the wealth acquired by himself
seemed no more than the necessary appendage to such public service.
Mr. Allen died in 1764; but his spirit still hovered over Bath, and
impelled individuals brought forward in his school, to make the second
and last improvement in our mail conveyances by substituting the rapid
speed of a coach, with its safety and accommodation of passengers, for
the slow and solitary progress of a postman on horseback. This system
commenced in 1784, twenty years after Mr. Allen’s decease. Mail
coaches led to a general improvement of roads, and this again to an
increase in the speed of coaches, while the reticulations of cross
posts became more fine, with intersections in every possible
direction, and the whole continues still improving; so that, morally
speaking, the illustrious founder still lives and breathes among us.
Mr. Allen had a sister, whom I faintly remember the widow of a Mr.
Elliott, and left with an only daughter. The old lady had great
pleasure in relating what she had seen and heard at Prior Park, her
having been there in company with Pope, Swift, Thomson, &c. and from
her is derived the story related by Mr. Polwhele of Mr. Hugh Boscowen.
The daughter married Mr. Thomas Daniell, then chief clerk to Mr.
Lemon, an individual not moving in a sphere so splendid as that of Mr.
Allen, but probably at least his equal in all the qualities essential
to those who fix a new era in the history of whatever they undertake.
On Mr. Lemon’s decease in 1760, Mr. Daniell was enabled by the bounty
of his wife’s uncle to take all the large mercantile concern on
himself, and having soon afterwards constructed a residence in Truro,
Mr. Allen presented him with several ship-loads of Bath stone; and
thus Truro, having quarries of excellent silicious building-stone
almost in its streets, and with granite distant only a few miles,
exhibits the front of its most handsome house encrusted with oolite
from Bath. To a similar act of liberality on the part of Mr. Allen,
the hospital of St. Bartholomew in London is indebted for an exterior
casing of the same stone; which, in consequence of the recent
improvements and extension of inland navigation, is now brought in
great quantities to the metropolis, to Oxford, and to places still
more remote from the quarries.
I may here perhaps introduce with propriety a relation descriptive of
the immense difference between our own times and those of Queen Anne,
in respect to the sources and to the diffusion of intelligence.
Mr. Sidney Godolphin, occupying the office of Lord High Treasurer,
visited more than once the seat in Cornwall from which he derived his
appellation of Earl; no regular conveyances at stated intervals
proceeded further west than Exeter, but when certain masses of letters
had accumulated, the whole were forwarded by what was called the post.
The Lord High Treasurer had a weekly messenger from Exeter bringing
letters, despatches, and a newspaper; and on the fixed day of his
arrival all the gentlemen assembled at Godolphin from many miles round
to hear the newspaper read in the great hall. This was told to my
father by Mr. John Borlase, father to the two Doctor Borlases, who had
himself been present. From ten to twenty daily papers now reach
Penzance in about forty hours from London.
Within my own remembrance a letter leaving London on Monday night
arrived at Penzance on Friday morning, a letter and its answer
occupying at present precisely that time.
This parish measures 1480 statute acres.
The annual value of its Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 1878 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 636 16 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 467 | 442 | 938 | 2155.
Increase on an hundred in 30 years, 361.45, or more than 361 per
cent.