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.And yet there was in the oldpeople s thought much of that beauty which poets seek, many178Figure 5.10 [above]: A.K.Hamilton Jenkin [1900-1980], left, as a TurkishKnight in an Old Cornwall production of St George and the Dragon, c.1924 further evidence of the political unionism of the Old Cornwall movementFigure 5.11 [below] Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch [ Q ; 1863-1944],from On the Art of Writing, 1920179rare flowers of the imagination, which the world of to-day, with all itsadvance in mechanism and science, can ill afford to lose.Whilst fullyadmitting the impossibility (even if it were desirable) of engrafting uponsuch a world the beliefs and outworn notions of a bygone day, there mustsurely lie between that and the ascendancy of a deep materialism somestate of compromise! For now, more than ever, folk-lore is coming to berecognised as an essential part of human knowledge, a magic casementopening on to the past through which the eye of modern man may see,down infinite vistas, the struggles of the awakening mind, and thoseprimitive movements towards the goal of truth which constitute theearliest history of the human race.Here, Hamilton Jenkin adopted the rhetorical device of distancing the Old Cornwallmovement from a serious and involved folk revivalism, aligning the movementinstead with a more detached stance towards folk culture in order to normalise andmake respectable such revived folk rituals as Crying the Neck and the lighting ofmidsummer bonfires.Hamilton Jenkin also objected to the mobilisation of Anglo-Catholicism as anexpression of the Cornishness of the Old Cornwall movement.If orthodox religionwere to be mobilised as an expression of Cornish nationality, then it should be thefervent religion that lay dormant from the Reformation until it was revived by JohnWesley.Methodism, for Hamilton Jenkin, sought to revive the established Church; itbecame a Nonconformist movement only when it was rejected by Anglicanism.Furthermore, Hamilton Jenkin (1945: 199-200) quoted the Superintendent ofCornwall Wesleyan Circuit, thus: When incense is burnt in Truro Cathedral and confessions are heardthere, and in many parish churches; when the validity of the sacramentsis made to depend on episcopal ordination and apostolic succession,then, by implication, if not by direct assertion, the Methodists and allFree churchmen are unchurched.For dwindling church attendances, especially among the young, Hamilton Jenkinblamed their ministry for failing to address  the really vital problems of the modernworld, namely peace, disarmament and social injustice and, instead, for preachingon the subjects of prohibition, gambling and Sunday games.The trend, he predicted,180would not be reversed until the arrival of  the John Wesley of to-day (HamiltonJenkin 1945: 201).5.2.2  How rapidly the storm has come upon us : Archaeology, Tourismand the Landscape of Old CornwallThe culture of landscape that was associated with the Old Cornwall movement wentbeyond that of the Celtic-Cornish Society, of holy wells and stone crosses.In 1912,Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch [see figure 5.11] was elected on to a county councilcommittee for the preservation of ancient monuments that included past and presentpresidents and secretaries of the RIC, the RCPS and the Penzance Natural Historyand Antiquarian Society [PNHAS].Furthermore, in addition to  Q , three morefounder members of the Celtic-Cornish Society  namely, Henry Jenner, ThurstanPeter and J.B.Cornish  were co-opted on to the committee (RIC 1914b).It wasresolved that the committee should prepare a preliminary list of antiquities forpreservation, under the forthcoming provisions of the Ancient MonumentsConsolidation and Amendment Act 1913.The task of preparing the list of disusedecclesiastical buildings fell to Peter; of ancient ruined castles, to Otho Peter [whowas only distantly, if at all, related to Thurstan Peter, the former s family being fromRedruth and the latter s family from Launceston]; of prehistoric monuments[comprising cliff castles, hill forts, earthworks, stone circles, longstones, quoits,underground structures and barrows], to Cornish; of ancient and holy wells, giventhe completeness of their researches already undertaken, to Mabel and LillianQuiller-Couch (1994 [1894]); and of crosses and inscribed stones, to Canon ThomasTaylor, who simply referred the committee to Old Cornish Crosses (Langdon 1896). It was also resolved to recommend that the county council should assume theguardianship of monuments of historic, traditional, and artistic interest within itsadministrative area, the RIC (1914b: 325) reported.At a meeting on 23 July 1913,in the wake of the passing of the Act, Jenner (1914: 445) was elected to chair thecommittee and duly brought the implications of the Act to the attention of the RIC: The principal provisions of the Act to which attention should be calledare the powers given to the authorities to prepare lists of monumentswhich ought to be preserved, to enforce Preservation Orders with regard181to them, and to make arrangements with landowners to take over theresponsibility of the care of the monuments.Added to this is the power ofpunishing destructive hooligans, which in a tourist-ridden district is ofgreat importance.As an example of such hooliganism, Jenner cited the case of an American touristwho had chipped off a piece of Mên-an-Tol as a souvenir. If such things happenagain, he continued (Jenner 1914: 445),  it will be our own fault, when once thisexcellent Act has got into working order.Having been held in abeyance from the outbreak of war, the activities of thecommittee resumed in 1920, with Charles Henderson taking the place of the lateThurstan Peter (RIC 1921; Jenner 1921-2a) [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]