The following extract appeared in a publication called ‘The Mothers’ Companion’ in 1889. It was written by a traveller who lodged with Thomas Jackson during the holiday season. At this time a number of Jacksons were earning extra income from taking in lodgers – some of the lodgers were engineers from the recently opened Eastern Telegraph Station in Porthcurno.
‘Porthgwarra consists of about twenty cottages, inhabited solely by fishermen and their families, and almost exclusively by Jacksons, whereby hangs a tale.
Many years ago, so runs the story, as related by Mrs. Lynn Linton in “The Mad Willoughby,” and corroborated by the fishermen themselves, the Jacksons lived in Penberth Cove, as their forefathers had done for generations. An independent, somewhat stiff-necked, self-respecting race then, as now, deeming it a degradation to take wage from any man. Upon the death of the lord of the manor, from whom they rented their cottages and bits of potato ground, the property fell into the hands of a London city man, who, seeing all the benefits to be derived from an improved method of fishing and transporting fish to market, determined to start his own seine boat, and also fast-sailing cutters, which would get to Penzance in time for the early market.
He spoke to the men fair and was willing to give good wages, but the very word was to the Jacksons as a blow in the face, and they one and all refused civilly but positively to work for any man, after being their own masters for so many generations. Then followed threats of eviction, which the men contemptuously disregarded, but when the first lease fell due for renewal it was refused, and this not proving effective in dislodging the tenant he was summarily evicted. Then up rose the men of Jackson in their wrath, and, but that the city man had been called to London on “urgent business,” great might have been the trouble to all concerned. But peaceable counsels prevailed, and instead of the city man departing this life, the Jacksons departed from Penberth Cove and settled in Porthgwarra, building themselves small wooden houses, which are gradually being replaced by solid and comfortable stone ones.
The fashionable quarter of Porthgwarra is “The Terrace,” consisting of three well-built eight-roomed houses on the top of a cliff, within a stone’s throw of the sea, which is reached by steps cut in the red sandstone. These three houses, and others in the coombe, take lodgers during the season, the rent for each room varying from 8s. to 10s. per week. Behind the Terrace rises another cliff, the summit of which is easily attained, and from which a long stretch of down, interspersed with ravines and coombes, extends to Penzance. Opposite the Terrace is the cliff leading to Land’s End, crowned with the old-fashioned beacons which served as steering-points for the vessels in ancient days, and which look to the uninitiated like huge red extinguishers.
Between this cliff and the Terrace lies the cove where the boats are drawn up, the nets mended, and which may be considered the village of Porthgwarra. Shops there are none absolutely none. The visitor must bring what he needs in every shape save food, or be prepared to send to Penzance for it. Bread, butter, milk, and eggs are obtainable from the different farmhouses, and are delivered at the door; meat is obtained from a roving butcher with a cart; fish can be obtained with ease if the weather be calm. When the haul has been a good one, you are invited to go down to the boats and help yourself to almost any- thing you take a fancy to; but lobsters, which they keep in “cellars” constructed amongst the rocks, which are covered with water at high tide, have to be paid for. When we went down with one of the fishermen to obtain a lobster he was careful to explain to us, as he took the padlock off his cellar, that they were kept locked, not because the fisher- men distrusted each other, but because visitors might lift up the lid and forget to replace it, whereby the lobsters and crabs would be lost. Groceries have to be obtained from Penzance, and are brought by the carrier at a trifling expense. Alcohol is not to be obtained in any form whatever in the village or neighbourhood, all the inhabitants being teetotallers.’
The Jacksons Of Porthgwarra 