Was Dolly Pentreath a fraud? A descendant reopens the case

For more than two centuries, Dolly Pentreath has carried one of the biggest labels in Cornish history: the last person to speak Cornish. Now a man who shares her surname, and speaks the language himself, is not convinced the story holds up. He has gone looking for the real Dolly, and what he found raises more questions than it answers.

A descendant takes on a family legend

The Cornish language society Agan Tavas, which runs the Campaign for the Cornish Language, has announced a new book that tries to untangle who Dolly really was. It is called Dolly Pentreath and the Cornish Language, and it is written by Dr Jan Pentreath, a Cornish speaker and a descendant of Dolly herself.

The book follows her discovery, her fame, and her true identity. Even inside the Pentreath family, Jan writes, Dolly has always been something of an enigma. Rather than repeat the familiar legend, the book puts it under pressure.

Who was Dolly Pentreath?

The Dolly of popular history was a fishwife from Mousehole who sold her catch around Penzance, and who is said to have told fortunes in later life. She is remembered as the last native speaker of Cornish, and by her own account could barely speak a word of English until she was around twenty. She died in 1777.

Her age is one of the first things that will not sit still. Parish records point to a baptism in 1692, while other accounts push her birth back to 1685 or earlier, which is why the fond old claim that she reached 102 is so hard to prove. She was brought to wider notice by the antiquarian Daines Barrington, who sought her out in 1768 and later wrote that she spoke Cornish fluently.

Whether she was truly the last speaker has been argued over ever since. Other people are recorded using the language after her, among them the Mousehole fisherman William Bodinar, and Cornish lingered in the local dialect long after that. She left a fierce reputation as well, known for cursing in long streams of Cornish and rumoured around Mousehole to be a witch.

In 1860 Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte, a nephew of Napoleon, joined the local vicar to raise a memorial to her in Paul churchyard, describing her as the last person to converse in the old Cornish tongue. Even that carries a sting in the tail. Later accounts claimed the stone was set some distance from her actual grave.

The questions the book asks

The starting point is the name. Was Dolly really a Pentreath at all and, if she was, did the name come by birth or by marriage? From there the questions get harder. How old was she really? Who were her parents, and who were her grandparents?

Then there is the claim she is best known for. Was she truly the last speaker of Cornish and, if so, why her? And the sharpest question of the lot: was her fame ever warranted, or was Dolly Pentreath something closer to a fraud?

Where to get the book

Dolly Pentreath and the Cornish Language is available online through Agan Tavas, or you can pick up a copy in person at the Gorseth on 5 September.

Whether the book settles the argument or reopens it is another matter. By the end, even a Pentreath is asking how much of Dolly we ever really knew.