Farmer, adventurer, tale collector 1816 - 1881
William Bottrell grew up on a farm at Raftra, near St Levan. His Sennen granny and his mother told young William tales by the fireside which he never forgot.
William went to Penzance then Bodmin Grammar schools. He was good at languages and became fluent in French and Spanish.
After school he worked on the family farm, but he longed for adventure.
In 1837 he travelled to Spain. He bought property from the church, grew a beautiful garden full of flowers and fruit, but the church reclaimed the land, Bottrell lost a lot of money and returned to farming in Cornwall, and married Elizabeth John of Lelant.
Canada was next in 1847, he taught in a seminary in Quebec, then worked in a wood yard, but things went wrong and back he came to Cornwall via New York in 1851.
After a few years he was restless again, and tried his luck in Australia. Sadly his luck ran out, his wife died, and back he came to Cornwall to live like a hermit in a cottage on the cliff in Lelant with his pony, cow and cat called Spriggans.
He was friends with the tin miners that worked nearby, they told him many tales, drolling around by the fireside after work.
He wrote these stories down, together with many he remembered from his childhood. They were published in the Cornishman newspaper, under the byline ‘The Old Celt.’ 1867 -89, then in 3 volumes of Traditions and Hearthside Stories of West Cornwall.
He died in 1881 and is buried in St Levan.
He wrote in a rambly, ‘intensley Cornish’ style, and his work was popular and quoted the world over. It captured ‘the spirit of what we think of as old Cornwall,’ and influenced the founding of The Old Cornwall Society.
It’s thanks to Bottrell that we know about the piskeys and giants, pellars and droll tellers today.
Traditions and Hearthside Tales of West Cornwall First Series (W. Cornish, Penzance, 1870).
Traditions and Hearthside Tales of West Cornwall Second Series (Beare and Son, Penzance, 1873).
Traditions and Hearthside Tales of West Cornwall Volume Third Series (W. Cornish, Penzance, 1870).
About Bottrell
Obituary The Cornishman 1 Sept 1881 (written by The Cornishman’s editor, Charles Wildman)
‘William Bottrell and some of his Characters.’ Joseph Hambly Rowe ‘0ld Cornwall’ 1929
‘Superstitions in Bottrell.’ JB Smith Tradition Today 8, June 2019
‘Cornish Legends’ Charlotte MacKenzie 2022
