Recently, I have begun to piece together an odd story about the origins of Peter Truro of Cornwall.
Peter appears first in the baptismal records of Truro, Cornwall, England as “Peter Truro, a black” on 3 October 1777. He next appears in a marriage record in Flushing, Cornwall on 12 October 1783, when he marries his wife Catherine Richards. From 1784 to 1798, his name is mentioned in the christening or burial records of his seven children: Peter Richards Truro, William Richards Truro, Kitty Truro, William Richards Truro, Anthony Richards Truro, Catherine “Kitty” Richards Truro and an unnamed Truro child. That is what can be verified by the existing vital records.
His grandson, Henry Truro Bray, would later write that Peter was a Bengali Prince who was kidnapped while bathing and taken to live in England. Some version of this story appears to exist among the various Truro descendants and has been the topic of some criticism, including those who think he must have been a freed slave, drawing mainly from the term “a black” in the baptismal record. I do not think this is the case since “a black” tells us very little other than the color of his skin. But, it is possible. Given the records above, it is impossible to know.
However, the current conjecture seeks to go a little further, drawing on clues that are possibly meaningless but should not be discounted.
I started rethinking this, when I noticed the middle name of one of Peter’s great great granddaughters, Grace Nondalka Truro George. This is not an English name but the word does occur in a form in Hindu mythology. Nundaka was the sword of Vishnu, and meant “source of joy.” The word has many connections. It is a village in Odisha, India. It has been used to denote some royal families. It does not seem to occur anywhere in the UK, much less Cornwall. I do not know–wish I could ask them–why Ambrosine Truro Hicks and her husband Edward Joseph Pippen George chose this name, but I suspect that it had something to do with the family lore around Peter.
That might be a deadend. But the next clue is much more close to home. The last unnamed child of Peter Truro and Catherine Richards was buried, not in Flushing but in nearby Perranzabuloe. It is the last mention of Peter. The record has a note attached that reads “Barton.” On the same day of this burial, a Mr. Barton buries his unnamed child also in Perranzabuloe.
I think the most straightforward inference is that the burial of the two children were both arranged by Mr. Barton. It could also be that the two children are the same, but the record of the Truro child says very clearly the child of Peter and Catherine. So I think it is safe to assume that there were, in fact, two children buried that day.
But the question is why would Peter and Catherine suddenly bury their child in a different place? And why would they need the help of this Mr. Barton? Was he a relative? What was his connection.
The mystery gets a little deeper. There was no family of a Mr. Barton in Perranzabuloe – this is the only Barton record. Barton is not a prevalent Cornish name. It is worth, at this point, showing the few other Barton records from the time and place:
- 1799 William Barton buries Elizabeth Bell Barton in Kenwyn
- 1801 James and Margery Barton baptize William Irwin Barton in St. Gluvias.
- 1816 Elizabeth Barton marries Richard Waters in Kenwyn
I think that it is likely that the Mr. Barton who buries a child in Perranzabuloe is the same as the William Barton who buries a child in Kenwyn. Kenwyn was also the residence of Peter Richards, an uncle of Catherine Richards, who I think could be the namesake of Peter Truro’s first child, Peter Richards Truro. I suspect that this Peter Richards may also have raised young Peter Truro and the source of Peter’s own name.
As tenuous as it is, this William Barton, who is only in Kenwyn/Perranzabuloe for two years, is connected both to the family of Peter Truro and, maybe, in some way, to his possible benefactor Peter Richards. I have not been able to figure out what happened to Peter Richards himself or to his family, with the exception that his daughter Eleanor may have died as an unmarried woman in Kenwyn in 1812. There is much mystery here. Including the fact, that I may not have identified the right Peter Richards and the whole benefactor story is based on inference any way.
OK, now I jump to the world of the completely conjectural.
It turns out that there is a William Barton connected to Bengal, India of the time. The William in question was born after 1741 to a James Barton and had a brother named James (b 1741). The family hailed from Farrington, Lancashire and held significant positions in the East India Company’s administration of Bengal. In 1776, a scandal caught William Barton and he ended up fleeing to Copenhagen. There in Copenhagen, he bought himself a royal title and wrote his will on the 15th of May 1798. He had three children: two married daughters; Harriet Silberschildt and Elizabeth le Gros and a “natural born” son named William Haldane Barton who was born in 1784. Over the next 5 codicils to his will William Barton wrote his wife Harriet out of the will and finally died in 1826.
My conjecture is that either William Barton Sr or his son William Barton are the William Barton who shows up in Cornwall in 1798, fathers two children and pays for the burial of the Truro child. The younger William Barton would have been only 14. Perhaps he was sent to Cornwall to get an English education — but why Kenwyn??? And why would he be burying two children and such a young age with no record of a marriage? Could it be possible that the elder William Barton left Denmark quietly to spend two years in Cornwall? Why would he have done that?
I wonder if Peter Truro had actually disappeared in late 1797, leaving a pregnant wife who did not yet know his fate. Could William Barton have come to help support Peter Truro’s family? (I know this is wacky English romance novel stuff.) Why would William Barton Sr have cared or known Peter Truro for that case? In fact, why would any William Barton (because there are others of this name in England at the time, just not in Cornwall) have cared about the family of a black mariner from the tiny village of Flushing? OK. William Barton and Harriet married in 1770 so by 1798, Harriet would have been close to the end of child bearing age. Clearly, the William Barton in Cornwall had two children that did not live. Even if William Barton had temporarily relocated to Cornwall from Denmark, did he come with a woman who was not Harriet? And how was this whole affair disposed?
Back to the crazy conjecture, why does any of this make any sense? I think that William Barton Sr could have had a another “natural child” before his marriage with Harriet Higgens in 1770. And, furthermore, I think that this child could have been born to an Indian woman, marked with this bi-racial stigma from birth. William would have had to have fathered an out-of-wedlock child with an Indian woman around 1763. And then when the child is a little older, the Barton family might have sent the child to England to keep the secret. Perhaps, they even arranged a kidnapping and then for a Cornish family to take him in, He is, then, baptized in 1777 at around 14 years of age.
The story has some things to recommend it.
First of all, it can explain why anyone would have sent an Indian child to be raised in Cornwall in the first place.
Second, instead of being a “Bengali Prince”, Peter would have been from a wealthy English family and an unknown Indian woman. Young William Richards Truro (his descendants tell this Bengal story) would have been 8 or 9 at the time of the disappearance of his father. He may have heard from William Barton himself that his father was a “Bengali Prince.” It would be a harmless story that you tell a child and William Barton would have had motivation to keep the true story secret from a child.
And finally, we know that in 1798 William Barton wrote his will. It might be that he wanted to tie up his Cornish loose ends in a satisfactory way. Or it could be that he heard from Peter Richards that Peter Truro had disappeared.
This fantasy has many loose ends but a few things to recommend it. What I like most is that it seems more realistic than the prince who was kidnapped while bathing or the freed slave who is able to marry into a Cornish family. Socially speaking, the testimony of the grandchildren of Peter Truro is that the Richards/Truro family may have been very snobby (Lavinia Elizabeth Howe Truro would marry Richard Bray a miner and suffer anger from her family for marrying below her station – according to an fictional story her granddaughter wrote and published in Harpers Weekly). It is hard to believe that they would have merely sanctioned the marriage of Peter and Catherine without some belief that Peter came from good stock. I think that Peter was educated and raised by Peter Richards with some form of continuing income — but this also is nothing but conjecture. Perhaps, it was also to keep this income in the family that the Richards arranged for the marriage of the young Peter.
So, does this get us any where? Not sure. But it seems to have the makings of a good story.