Black History of Penzance: The People and Stories That Help Us See Cornwall Differently
By Mayar Akash | Published by MAPublisher
What do we really know about the people of African, Asian and other minority ethnic backgrounds who lived, worked, travelled through or helped shape Penzance and the wider Penwith landscape?
Their stories are not all found in one archive. Some survive in parish registers and newspapers. Others appear in ships’ records, photographs, family papers, business histories and the recollections of people who are still here to tell their stories.
Some names are familiar. Others have been overlooked, misunderstood or remain waiting to be discovered.
In Black History of Penzance: People, Places, Lives and Connections, local author and publisher Mayar Akash brings these strands together in an investigation that begins in Penzance and follows the evidence outward.
This is not simply a book about slavery, nor is it an attempt to squeeze the whole of Black history into a single narrative. It is an exploration of people, identity, belonging and the connections that link a Cornish town to a much wider world.
And it asks a question that matters to anyone interested in local history:
Whose stories have we yet to discover about the place we call home?
Penzance first — and then the wider story
The starting point is Penzance itself.
From there, the research follows connections into Penwith and, where the evidence makes it relevant, across Cornwall and beyond.
The book examines historical figures and events alongside more recent lives and experiences. Its subjects include Alexander “the Moore” and the fragments preserved in early parish records; the Africans associated with the Perle; musician Joseph Emidy and his family; the visit to Penzance by J. A. Rogers; the story of Mr Dass; Dickie Barr; and contemporary individuals whose lives connect Cornwall with a wider world.
Among those explored are Beverley Fitzgerald-Bevington, Ajay Singh and other people whose experiences contribute to the developing picture of Black and minority ethnic life in Cornwall.
These are not all stories of the same kind. They belong to different periods, emerge from different sources and raise different historical questions.
That diversity is precisely the point.
Black history is not one story. It is many stories — sometimes connected, sometimes distinct, and often more complicated than a simple label can convey.
More than slavery: people, lives and connections
The history of Black people in Britain is often introduced through the transatlantic slave trade and its consequences. That history is essential, but it does not encompass the whole experience of people of African and other minority ethnic backgrounds.
People travelled, worked, married, raised families, made music, established businesses, served in wartime and formed relationships with the communities around them.
Their lives were shaped by the circumstances of their times, but they were not defined by a single historical event.
Black History of Penzance looks beyond a single subject to consider the range of ways people became connected to this part of Cornwall.
It asks what the surviving records reveal, what contemporary accounts tell us, and how individual lives fit into the larger story of a place.
The result is an invitation to look again at Penzance — not as an isolated Cornish town, but as a community with connections extending far beyond its coastline.
History needs evidence — and honesty about what we do not know
One of the principles behind this book is straightforward:
What does the evidence tell us — and what does it not tell us?
Historical research can be tempting when a fragment appears to offer a complete answer. A name in a register, a description in an old document or a ship arriving in Cornwall may suggest a connection. But a suggestion is not automatically proof.
A ship reaching the coast does not establish that everyone aboard lived locally. A historical description does not necessarily tell us how a person understood their own identity. A family recollection can be invaluable, but it is not the same thing as a contemporary written record.
Equally, the absence of a name from the records that survive today does not prove that a person was never here.
These distinctions matter.
Rather than presenting every possibility as an established fact, the book recognises where the evidence is strong, where sources conflict and where a connection remains possible rather than proven.
That approach does not make history less interesting. It makes the investigation more meaningful.
It allows readers to see not only the stories that can be told, but also the work still needed to understand them fully.
From the historical record to living memory
Not every story belongs to a distant century.
Some of the book’s subjects are connected to more recent Cornish life, where personal testimony, photographs and family memories can help illuminate experiences that formal archives may not fully capture.
Living memory brings another dimension to local history. It can reveal how people experienced a place, how they were received, what they contributed and how their sense of belonging developed over time.
Such accounts also deserve care. Memories can differ, details can be uncertain, and experiences are personal. They should be heard and recorded without automatically treating every recollection as proof of every historical detail.
Bringing documentary evidence and lived experience into conversation gives the book its particular character.
It is not only about people who appeared in old records. It is also about the people whose stories are still being told.
Why this history matters to Penzance
Local history helps a community understand how it became what it is.
It can reveal the people behind familiar names, the connections behind apparently isolated events and the lives that may have remained outside the usual account of a town’s past.
For Penzance, this means looking beyond a narrow picture of Cornish identity.
The town’s history can be understood more fully when we consider the people who arrived from elsewhere, those who made their lives here, and the relationships that connected the local community with other parts of Britain and the wider world.
This does not diminish Penzance’s distinct Cornish character. It adds depth to it.
A place can have a strong local identity and an international history at the same time.
Indeed, discovering those connections can help us understand the place more honestly.
A beginning, not the final word
No single book can recover every forgotten name or settle every unanswered question.
There are still photographs to identify, family memories to record, documents to examine and possible connections to investigate. Some stories may become clearer as new evidence emerges. Others may remain uncertain.
For that reason, Black History of Penzance is intended as a beginning as well as a record of research already undertaken.
It offers readers material to explore, questions to consider and a reason to look again at the history around them.
Readers may recognise a name, know a family story or possess a photograph that could help illuminate a connection. Such contributions can be important, provided they are approached carefully and checked against the evidence wherever possible.
History is not always a finished product. Sometimes it is an ongoing conversation between the archive, the researcher and the community.
About the author
Mayar Akash is a Penzance-based author, publisher and community storyteller whose work explores heritage, identity, belonging and the preservation of overlooked voices.
Through MAPublisher, established in 2018, he has worked with poets, writers and artists to bring their work into print. His wider publishing interests include British Bangladeshi history, community memory, poetry and Cornish cultural life.
Black History of Penzance brings these interests together in a place-based investigation: beginning with the town he calls home and following the evidence wherever it leads.
Discover Black History of Penzance
Who lived here? Who passed through? Who made a life here? Which stories have been preserved — and which still need to be found?
Black History of Penzance: People, Places, Lives and Connections invites readers to explore those questions through a history rooted in Penzance, extending into Penwith and reaching further into Cornwall where the evidence connects the local story to a wider one.
For anyone interested in Cornish history, Black history, family history or the people who have helped shape local communities, this is an opportunity to look at Penzance from a broader perspective.
The world is present in Penzance. This book explores some of the people and connections that help us see it.
Book details
- Author: Mayar Akash
- Title: Black History of Penzance: People, Places, Lives and Connections
- Publisher: MAPublisher
- Format: Paperback, 232 pages
- ISBN: 9781915958471
Order the book:
https://www.mapublisher.org.uk/products/ma-publisher/black-history-of-penzance-53559916
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