Mr. Sidney Godolphin must be considered as the most eminent statesman
and politician of this county, not excepting Lord Chatham, if his
birth at Boconnoc should be deemed sufficient to make him a Cornish
man.
Advanced to the honour of Earl of Godolphin, decorated with the
Garter, and placed in high office as Lord High Treasurer, he mainly
conducted the great national affairs at home, while the Duke of
Marlborough vindicated, by splendid victories in the field, the
religious and civil liberties of the world.
―――― Victorque volentes
Per populos dat jura; viamque affectat Olympo.
To Lord Godolphin we are also indebted for conducting to a successful
conclusion a measure most beneficial to this whole island, the Union
with Scotland; and the whole tenour of his administration procured for
him, with the consent of all parties, the appellation of Wise.
In an ode inscribed to the Earl of Sunderland on his receiving the
Garter, is this stanza:
In after times, as Courts refined,
Our patriots in the list were join’d,
Not only Warwick stain’d with blood,
Or Marlborough near the Danube’s flood,
Here in their crimson crosses glow’d;
But, on just law-givers bestow’d,
Those emblems Cecil did invest,
And gleam’d on Wise Godolphin’s breast.
Sidney Earl of Godolphin died in 1712, and was succeeded by his son
Francis, then called Lord Rialton, who had married Henrietta
Churchill, eldest daughter of the Duke of Marlborough.
This lady became Duchess of Marlborough on the decease of her father
in 1722, under the provision of a special Act of Parliament, but dying
in 1733 without issue, the Dukedom and property devolved on her nephew
Charles Spencer Earl of Sunderland, son of her sister Ann Churchill.
The Earldom of Godolphin expired also on the death of Francis
Godolphin in 1766; but a Barony had been conferred on him, with
remainder to the heirs of his uncle Henry Godolphin; this fell to his
first cousin Francis Lord Godolphin. On his decease in 1785 the name
and honour of Godolphin became extinct. But Mary, daughter and
eventually sole heir of Francis the second and last Earl of Godolphin,
had married Thomas Osborne, fourth Duke of Leeds, and his
great-grandson Francis Godolphin D’Arcy Osborne, Duke of Leeds,
inherits the property as heir-at-law.
The Godolphins appear never to have possessed an estate in land beyond
the limits of what might fairly belong to a private gentleman; but the
produce of tin has been very great from the period recorded by Mr.
Carew, so that the name of the place may well be derived from that
metal; subsequently, the produce of copper has exceeded that of the
tin. The whole parish of Breage is covered by mines, and the largest
and most productive, and most expensive tin mine ever known, is now
producing a greater quantity of metal than was yielded in former times
by the whole county. Whele Vor, now employing several steam-engines of
the largest size to exhaust the water, and numerous others to draw up
the ore, and afterwards to reduce it into the state of a fine powder,
is said to have used, about a century ago, the first steam-engine ever
seen in Cornwall.
Pengelly in this parish was the residence, for many generations, of
the Spernons or Sparnons. The family became extinct on the death of a
gentleman in the medical profession at Lostwithiel, and the property
was sold about fifty years ago.
For an anecdote respecting newspapers and despatches, see the notice
of Mr. Ralph Allan in St. Blazey.
This parish contains 6456 statute acres.
Annual value of the Real Property, as £. _s._ _d._
returned to Parliament in 1815 8673 0 0
Poor Rate in 1831 1293 15 0
Population, { in 1801, | in 1811, | in 1821, | in 1831,
{ 2534 | 2888 | 3668 | 5149.
103 per cent. or 3 per cent. above doubled in 30 years.
Present Vicar, the Rev. R. G. Grylls, presented by the King in 1809.