Ann Boswell, better known as Granny Boswell, is one of Cornwall’s best known characters and an important figure for many in the gypsy community but who was the real woman who has inspired so much affection, so many stories and has even been depicted in one of the biggest TV shows of the past decade?!

Meet Granny Boswell

One of Cornwall’s best-known gypsies, Ann Boswell, was actually born in Ireland in around 1813. According to her own testimony her birthday was the 17^th March, St Patrick’s Day. She and her husband, Ephraim, who was known in Cornwall as the King of the Gypsies, were thought to have originally come from Tipperary, and spent some time in Somerset before eventually settling in Cornwall in the 1850s.

The couple remained here for the rest of their days, raising a huge brood of children and becoming, in many ways, an infamous but fascinating family. Despite living lives that we would describe today as “off grid” we can learn a surprising amount about the Boswells from contemporary accounts, parish records and the newspaper archives.

In January 1854 the Boswells crossed paths with George Henry Borrow. Borrow had been born in Norfolk but had Cornish ancestry and a passion for gypsy heritage. He had visited gypsy camps all over England and in Europe and Russia, even learning to speak Romany and compiling a dictionary of the language.

After a visit to Carn Brea he wrote in his diary:

“Saw caravan and tents just above Roseworthy. Went up to the caravan – dark woman addressed me – asked her her name in Rommany, pretended at first not to understand, then answered me. Presently her husband, a remarkably civil knavish-looking personage, looked out and began to discourse with me. Told me their names were Bosvile [sic]. Heard the sound of fiddles in the tents in a field over a little stone wall. The woman asked me into the caravan. Told them I was mokhado [filthy] – gave them fourpenny piece and departed.”

Borrow’s depiction of Ephraim as ‘knavish looking’ fits rather nicely with the description given of him given in the Bodmin Gaol prisoner register in August 1858. The record says that Ephraim was a basket maker at that time, aged 31 years, 5’4” with dark eyes and hair, an oval face and bushy eyebrows, the left one with a scar. He also had pockmarks and “dark sandy whiskers”. Ephraim was in gaol for one month for assault and remarkably his records show he actually gained weight while in prison.

The Boswell Family

In 1861 Ann gave birth to one of her many children in a tent on Kirland Road at Blowinghouse, near Bodmin. Ann and Ephraim had their new daughter, Love Unity Boswell, baptised at Bodmin and the family’s living circumstances were recorded in the parish register there.

Their son Abraham was born in 1865 at Copperhouse in Hayle, while their next child Henry was born on Tower Street in Launceston, and when their youngest Angeletta was baptised in 1880 the family were living in Green Lane near Godolphin.

Ann Boswell’s true age is a bit of a mystery, if she was really born in 1813 some of her children appear to have been born very late in life, not entirely impossible of course but certainly very unusual. It is also possible that Ann didn’t actually know her age or date of birth, as the gypsy community didn’t worry so much about registering these things, and so was younger than has been recorded. But she certainly did have a big family, while giving evidence at the trial of his son, Abraham, in October 1883 Ephraim claimed that the couple had had sixteen children all together.

As the baptismal records illustrate Ann and Ephraim made their living on the move. As they set up home in place after place Ephraim earned money as a labourer or a cane worker repairing the seats of chairs and sometimes a cabinet maker. He passed his woodworking skills on to his son Abraham, who was recorded as a chair maker too. When, later in life, the family settled more permanently in the Helston area Ann became a bit of a local celebrity, with many people affectionately calling her ‘Granny Boswell’.  She was considered a cunning woman, the Cornish term for a white witch or healer, and it is said that locals went to her for advice, cures and charms.

Ann was a diminutive 5’1″ tall but she was a strong personality and had a stern reputation which she is said to have used to her advantage. In 1882 she appeared before magistrates on a couple of occasions for what could be described as obtaining goods unlawfully or under false pretences. During the hearing it was explained that Ann would often visit people’s houses offering to tell their fortunes and would then spot some small object in the home that she fancied. Ann would cajole the owner into giving it to her. It was said that those she asked were too frightened of her ill-wishing them to refuse her.

“[Ann Boswell] was in the habit of introducing herself to houses on the pretence of telling fortunes and she worked such a spell on people that they allowed her to take away whatever she fancied.”

Cornubian & Redruth Times, 1^st December 1882

The items Ann took were of little value – a glass jug, a china cup and saucer etc, so her punishment was slight. She was sent to gaol for a fortnight. When Ann was sentenced the newspaper reported that she seemed totally unfazed and popped a large lump of chewing tobacco into her mouth as she was led away.

Abraham Boswell

A particularly difficult period of the Boswell’s life must surely have been when their son, Abraham, was charged with murder in 1883. Abraham was 20 years old when the incident happened and he is described in some accounts as a ‘tinker’, a rather derogatory term that refers to someone who travels around the countryside repairing metal items, and in others as a ‘chair mender’. He and his friend, Thomas Down, a 44 year old razor grinder, had been drinking brandy together in the Hosken’s Arms in Cubert for much of the afternoon in early October 1883. Abraham, who was said to be “a rough looking fellow” and “powerfully built” with a “quarrelsome disposition” seemed to be in something of a temper. And when it came to paying for their drinks an argument erupted.

Abraham is said to have kicked Down in the face, giving him a bloody nose but despite this Down remained calm and did not retaliate, perhaps he feared his friends temper . . . They left the pub together around 4pm and walked in the direction of St Newlyn East. Down was carrying his grinding machine with him and Abraham had a bundle of canes and some tools. Witnesses said that Boswell seemed very drunk and kept stumbling and falling. This happened several times and on one occasion Down was heard to laugh at him, at which point Abraham became angry again.

He pushed Down over in the road, up against a hedge, and then brutally beat him with a hammer. The witnesses, which included some men who were passing and two young boys, tried to intervene and managed to restrain Abraham, who was apparently wild with rage, but it was too late, Thomas Down died soon after. He was buried in Cubert churchyard on the 4th October 1883 and Boswell was arrested and charged with his murder. Next to his name in the Cubery Parish records is written – “Travelling Tinker, murdered”.

When the case came to trial Abraham Boswell was found guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter, probably because of his drunken state at the time of the attack, and he was sentenced to 20 year imprisonment with hard labour, rather than a death sentence. This must have been something of a relief to his family but records show that he was held in the castle at Exeter in the lead up to his trial and it is unclear where he served his sentence and whether his mother, Ann, would have been able to visit her son as she remained in Helston.

Curses & More Troubles

An incident that happened in around 1906 is undoubtedly the most well known and often repeated as proof of Ann’s ‘powers’. She was apparently leaving a pub in Helston when a motor-car, perhaps the first she had ever seen, was coming down Coinagehall Street. According to legend Ann was fascinated by the machine and stepped out into the road to get a better look. 

The driver, clearly agitated by the old woman blocking his path, became exasperated and sounded his horn, it is said that Ann was furious at this rudeness. She brought forth a torrent of abuse, cursing the man and his vehicle, saying they would never make it out of Helston.  By all accounts the car only made it to the end of the road before breaking down. All attempts to restart it failed and eventually it had to be towed away by horses.

Ann had many encounters with the law over the years for disorderly behaviour, hawking without a license and even for fighting. In 1863 she and Ephraim got into an argument in the Tradesman’s Arms, a beer shop on Causewayhead, in Penzance. The Cornish Telegraph reported that “the house was in uproar” and Ephraim, perhaps wisely, ran away from his wife who was “screeching murder”. The police had to be called. On another occasion both Ann and her daughter Maria were arrested for drunkenness on Alverton Street and fined 7s 6d each. While some of these incidents may seem amusing to us now as Ann got older rather than settling down her behaviour became even more of a concern to the local authorities. It is likely that a number of personal tragedies may have deeply affected her.

A Sad End

In 1891 the Boswells were living in tents at Tregowris, near St Keverne, when their youngest son Henry died, aged just twenty-one. Their daughter Unity also died a year later and from this time on it seems that Ann started to drink to excess. She had, of course, already lost her son Abraham a few years before when he had been sent to prison for twenty years. Then in 1904 Ephraim Boswell passed away at the age of 84. The Bodmin Gaol registers confirm that Ann was imprisoned on no less than seven occasions, often for drunken behaviour, between 1896 and 1905. She also began staying at the Helston workhouse during the winter months around this time, understandable seeing as she was now well into her eighties herself. Unfortunately however Mr Ratcliffe of the Helston Board of Guardians expressed the opinion that she was too much of a troublemaker while she was there and was becoming an “annoyance” to the staff. It seems that he didn’t want to accommodate her any more.

When quizzed about her drinking at a magistrates hearing for a charge of drunkenness in Camborne in 1906 at the age of (around?) 93, Ann claimed she drank “for her stomach”. The Cornishman newspaper described that “the accused”, Ann, was carrying with her a basket with three clay pipes and a tobacco box and said that she had asked for permission to smoke in the courtroom. When this wish was granted “the old woman puffed forth volumes of smoke and nearly filled the room.”

The reporter was also taken with her politeness, writing that each time she was questioned about her circumstances Ann would “curtsey in the most respectful manner.”

Ann Boswell died in the Helston Workhouse in August 1909 and was buried with Ephraim, Henry and Unity at Tregerest Chapel near Sancreed. Hundreds of gypsies from all over Cornwall attended the funeral. The mourners filling the chapel and the graveyard and spilling out onto the road.

The image below was taken at her funeral and you can just make out her flower laden coffin through the mass of people. It is moving to see so many people respectfully bowing their heads in the crowd for a woman who still seems larger than life to us today and must have been a much loved matriarch of the community then.

To this day visitors to Granny Boswell’s grave still bring her small gifts of ribbons, cigarettes, beer and flowers.

Final Thoughts

In recent years the Boswell family of gypsies have featured in the popular BBC series ‘Peaky Blinders’. In the fictious story Madame Bethany Boswell is a wise, old gypsy woman living in Wales. After the death of his wife Tommy Shelby consults Madame Boswell about a cursed gem stone. Although there is no indication than Cornwall’s Granny Boswell was the inspiration for the character somehow a connection seems likely.

As for the real ‘Madame Boswell’, well, I hope that this article about Ann Boswell shows that although her life was certainly a chequered one, full of trials, loss and hardship, she was also a strong, indefatigable woman who lived very much on her own terms. She had a long and (mostly) happy marriage, raised many children and was very clearly a much loved and admired elder in the Cornish gypsy and ‘gorger’ communities.

And more than a hundred years after her death Ann is still remembered and remains a beloved character for many in Cornwall and beyond.

Further Reading:

Meet Janet Isaac – The Last Gypsy Queen of Cornwall

Granny Boswell: Cornwall’s Gypsy Queen

I provide all the content on this blog completely FREE, there's no subscription fee. If however you enjoy my work and would like to contribute something towards helping me keep researching Cornwall's amazing history and then sharing it with you then you can DONATE BELOW. Thank you!