WHEN WEST POLMEAR BECAME CHARLESTOWN: New Evidence from 1796.

For many years, I have suspected that the change of name from West Polmear to Charlestown took place earlier than prominent local historians, including A. L. Rowse and Richard Larn, have suggested. I have openly said this at talks and on my tours. However, I needed evidence. The date usually given is 1800 or 1801, when the new village was said to have been completed. Yet it always seemed more likely to me that such an important change would have marked a specific achievement.

The most obvious occasion was the completion of the harbour basin in 1796. This development transformed West Polmear from a small coastal settlement into an industrial port. The village continued to grow and was reportedly completed around 1801, when a detailed description appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine. William George Maton, a travelling companion of Charles Hatchett, wrote that account. But the harbour, rather than the later completion of the surrounding village, was surely the heart of Charles Rashleigh’s ambitious project.

The evidence of the Duporth Cup

My suspicions were strengthened when I closely examined the Duporth Cup. This small china cup is traditionally believed to have been presented to Charles Rashleigh to commemorate the completion of Charlestown village.

There are five painted scenes on the cup and its lid. Three depict stages in the construction of the harbour basin, another shows the gun battery, and the fifth shows Duporth Manor. The accompanying saucer bears the words “The rise and progress of Charlestown.” If the cup commemorated the completion of the village in 1801, why does it concentrate so heavily on the building of the harbour?

The cup itself does not establish a precise date, but its imagery suggests that the decisive achievement was the harbour basin. It therefore seems plausible to me that it was presented to Charles Rashleigh when the basin was completed in 1796, and that the name Charlestown came into use at about the same time.

The Duporth Cup.

Charlestown in the newspapers

In 2020, while searching newspaper archives for evidence of militia camps around St Austell, I found something unexpected. An article in the Chester Chronicle, dated 2 October 1798, reported that the Chester Militia was camped at Campdowns, near “Charlestown, St Austell.”

There it was, printed in black and white: the name Charlestown was already in public use three years before the date traditionally given for the change.

Further searching produced another reference from earlier in 1798. An account of a visit by members of the Hampshire Militia to the Longstone, published in March, also used the name Charlestown. I later found a further newspaper reference dating from July that year.

These discoveries established beyond doubt that the settlement was known as Charlestown by 1798. At the time, this appeared to push the accepted date back by several years. Yet an earlier and still more important piece of evidence was waiting to be found.

The saucer to the Duporth Cup.

Charles Hatchett’s visit in 1796

When I wrote Charlestown—Time and Tide, I mentioned a visitor named Charles Hatchett, who had met Charles Rashleigh and written about the ropewalk. While revisiting my research, I began to wonder whether Hatchett had recorded anything else about the settlement.

After many hours of searching, I found the following entry in his journal, A Tour Through the Counties of England and Scotland in 1796, Visiting Their Manufactories. Hatchett visited the village on 9 May 1796 and wrote:

“Went with Mr Charles and Mr Jonathan Rashleigh to see Charles Town built by the former. The town, the pier of granite and a considerable wet dock which at high water has a depth of 15 feet, with rope walk, store houses and fish cellars including the improved lands about, has been done upon the sole plan and at the sole expense of Mr C. Rashleigh upon his own estate—a wonderful work for a private Gentleman.”

Hatchett added: “The whole has been begun about 3 years.”

This is the most compelling evidence yet. Hatchett not only used the name “Charles Town” in May 1796, but described the harbour, wet dock, ropewalk, storehouses and fish cellars. His words show that the name was already in use as the harbour works approached completion.

Elsewhere in the entry, Hatchett described a mine a quarter of a mile southeast of St Austell called Huel Change, which I believe later became Wheal Polmear. He also recorded china stone and copper ore awaiting shipment from Rashleigh’s new quay. These observations reveal the scale and industrial character of the development, but the crucial point for the village's history is clear: Hatchett knew the settlement as Charles Town in May 1796.

Charles Hatchett.

So, who was Charles Hatchett?

Charles Hatchett was born in London on 2 January 1765. A chemist and mineralogist, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1797 and awarded its Copley Medal the following year. He is perhaps best remembered for discovering the element now known as niobium.

Hatchett’s scientific background makes his description particularly valuable. He was an informed observer with a close interest in mining, manufacturing and industrial processes, not merely a casual traveller. He had previously toured Cornwall in 1794 with the antiquary, botanist and clergyman Thomas Rackett and the physician-naturalist William George Maton. Modern historians have described such travellers as among the earliest “geotourists.”

Although Hatchett later gave up much of his scientific work to manage his family’s coachbuilding business, he remained an important figure in British chemistry. He died at Bellevue House in Chelsea in 1847.

The militia evidence

The newspaper references emerged from my research into the military presence around St Austell during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. The surviving evidence suggests that numerous units passed through or were stationed in the district between 1794 and 1811, including the Hampshire, Somerset and Chester militias, the Royal Artillery, the Royal Marines and the 41st Regiment of Foot.

One curious account concerns soldiers camped near the Longstone. During an exceptionally wet summer, they were said to have blamed an ancient, pierced stone for the weather, rolled it for more than a mile and pushed it over the cliffs at Duporth. The surviving reports are not entirely consistent about the unit involved or the precise date, so the story requires further investigation.

Parish records provide another indication of the scale of the military presence. In the fourteen years between 1797 and 1811, no fewer than sixty-two military or naval marriages were recorded at St Austell Parish Church. The authorities may have regarded St Austell Bay as a possible invasion point. Charlestown’s new harbour, the nearby coastline and the district’s growing industrial importance would all have given the area strategic value.

A revised history

Taken separately, these discoveries may appear to be fragments of local history. Together, however, they alter the accepted story of Charlestown’s beginnings.

The newspaper reports prove that the name was established by 1798. More importantly, Charles Hatchett’s journal shows that “Charles Town” was already in use in May 1796. His description closely connects the name with Rashleigh’s harbour, wet dock and associated industries.

The Duporth Cup points in the same direction. Its scenes celebrate the construction of the harbour basin rather than the later completion of the village. Although the cup alone cannot establish a date, it supports the documentary evidence that the harbour was the achievement most closely associated with Charlestown’s identity.

Charlestown was Charlestown by May 1796.

The evidence therefore suggests that the new name was not adopted in 1800 or 1801 to mark the completion of the village. It was already being used in 1796 and may well have been introduced in connection with the completion, or approaching completion, of the harbour basin.

More evidence may yet emerge, and some details—particularly those concerning the militia and the destruction of the ancient stone—require further investigation. Nevertheless, the traditional date of 1800 or 1801 can no longer be accepted without question. The challenge now is to discover exactly when, why and by whom the new name was first proclaimed.

Written by Lyndon Allen, July 2026.