In August 1797 Rev. Richard Polwhele preached a sermon to his congregation in Manaccan concerning two rather “melancholy events” that had recently taken place in the parish. One was a destructive storm of near biblical proportions, the other was a murder.
I first came across Richard Roskruge’s story while on the hunt for unusual epitaphs in Cornish churchyards, his headstone stands just beyond the porch of St Anthony in Meneage church. I soon discovered however, that there was much more to it than just a strange choice of inscription.
It has taken quite a while to gather up the threads of this story and compile them so that I am able to share them with you. I have done my best to piece together events and I think that they give us a fascinating glimpse into the past.
Sadly, however, there remain several vital, unanswered questions, questions that, more than 200 years later, we will probably never know the answers to but I don’t think that those gaps in our knowledge make this story any less worthy of telling.
So, to the best of my knowledge, here are the unusual events that occurred in Cornwall over roughly two weeks in the summer of 1797.
The Order of Events in 1797
- Richard Roskruge attends church with his family on Sunday 13th August
- The murder of Richard Roskruge occurs on Monday 14th August.
- A catastrophic storm batters the area on Friday 18th August.
- The funeral of Richard Roskruge is held on Friday 25th August
- Rev. Richard Polwhele preaches his sermon on Sunday 27th August
Roscrug
The Roskruge or Roscruge or Roskrege family took its name from a hamlet or these days a farm on the Lizard situated in the tangle of backroads between Manaccan and Porthallow. Roscrug/Roscruc as a place-name was first recorded in 1303 and the family were landowners and farmers in the area around Manaccan for generations. The historian A. L. Rowse mentions a “John Roskrege of St Anthony in Meneage” in his book on Tudor Cornwall as a witness to a local scandal in the 16th century.
The name, according to Craig Weatherhill, means “roughland with a barrow/tumulus” and a quick look at the OS map shows a beacon marked close to modern day Roskruge Barton. This beacon, once used to signal the arrival of the Spanish Armada, is 370ft above sea level and actually sits on what is almost certainly a Bronze Age barrow.
Richard Roskruge was the great-grandson of Anthony Roscruge Esq. who, according to Lake’s Parochial History of the County of Cornwall, sold the family seat in around 1680, presumably due to a decline in their fortunes. From then on the family continued to live in the parish as “respectable yeomen” but leasing rather than owning land.
When Richard’s father, also called Richard, died in 1758 he made him executor of his will and bequeathed him all his goods and chattels, apart from two small bequests to his brother John and sister Elizabeth. This inheritance included “the leasehold of my estate at Carne”.
As well as farming it appears that the Roskruges were also involved in the fishing community around the Helford River as Richard is also noted as leasing a fish cellar in Helford village in 1760. And interestingly the Royal Cornwall Gazette mentions Richard Roskruge’s attempt to invent a new kind of pilchard net in around 1782.
So it is clear that Richard Roskruge was a well-known and well-respected member of the community from a long-standing local family – which perhaps made his murder all the more shocking.
The Murder
“We saw the unhappy victim go forth to his occupation in the morning – full of health and vigour – as unapprehensive of danger as we are at this moment – yet drop as instantaneously as a flash from a dark cloud, a sacrifice to the resentment of a man who knew not how to rule his spirit.”
REV. RICHARD POLWHELE – A DISCOURSE PREACHED AT THE PARISH CHURCH OF MANACCAN, 27TH AUGUST 1797
On the morning of the 14th August 1797, the day of the murder, it seems that many people in the parish saw Richard Roskruge. He had attended church at Manaccan with them the previous day, along with his wife Joan and their son, “zealous in the performance of his duties to God” and that morning he set out to fulfil his duties as ‘Surveyor of the Highways’.
This was a thankless and often frustrating role given to him by his community which he would have taken on in addition to his own farm work.
At this time each parish was charged by the government with keeping its own roads in good repair. In practice this meant that every man in the parish who owned or occupied land worth £50 a year or more was obliged to supply a cart, horses, tools and two men for six days to work on maintaining the roads in their area. And according to The Gentlemen’s Magazine of 1754 Cornwall’s roads had the reputation of being the worst in England.
“Cornwall, I believe, at present has the worst roads in England . . . and most of those which have been improved are still so extremely narrow and uneven that they are almost inaccessible to all kinds of wheeled vehicles.”
The ‘Surveyor of the Highways’ was appointed by the parish to try and organise this work and more importantly persuade his neighbours to supply the necessary funds and labour. It was a responsible job that required a friendly manner, powers of persuasion and tact.
“The unfortunate individual who was chosen as Surveyor had to persuade the major landowners in the district to spend their own time and money on making good the worst sections of the highway . . . if they refused, he could in theory arrange for the full majesty of the law to descend on their heads but these people were his neighbours and in many cases his friends. He had to live with them afterwards . . .”
John Hearfield, Roads in the 18th Century
This was the position that Richard Roskruge held in 1797 and he was, according to the accounts of the time, murdered “in the execution of his office”.
That day, 14th August, a man called John Rashleigh, described as “a neighbouring farmer”, struck him over the head with a biddax. A biddax is the Cornish name for a kind of broad-bladed mattock or pickaxe often used for removing turf and breaking up hard ground. Just the kind of tool that might have been used while repairing roads.
It isn’t clear whether Rashleigh was a workman employed by Roskruge or a landowner in the area who had been asked to contribute financially to repairs but we do know that his “irascible and vindictive temper” was “notorious in the neighbourhood”.
It was said that the two men, Roskruge and Rashleigh, had been in dispute over “a very trivial subject” but what exactly that was wasn’t recorded. What is clear is that Rashleigh lost his temper, something he was apparently known for, and attacked Richard Roskruge.
The injured man didn’t die straight away, he lingered long enough to identify who had attacked him and was recorded as saying that Rashleigh “had a corrosive against him” – meaning that he was holding a grudge or bearing ill-will towards him.
As word spread about what had happened Rev. Polwhele gave instructions that the local constables should be informed and that Rashleigh should be found and taken into custody. But for some reason there was a delay, no immediate action was taken, which gave the attacker time to make a run for it.
So when Richard Roskruge died later that day his murderer was already at large.
The Storm
“There are two awful events so recent amongst us that their impression must still continue lively on the minds of the most unthinking. From the shock of them we are scarcely yet recovered.”
Rev. Richard Polwhele – A Discourse Preached at the Parish Church of Manaccan, 27th August 1797
Four days later, in an event that Rev. Polwhele would symbolically link to the murder, there was a violent storm.
This shockingly unseasonable weather was reported in the national newspapers where it was said that “hail stones the size of sparrow eggs” fell on the area around the Helford River.
The storm arrived at about 9pm and as it was the height of summer it was still daylight so the people were able to watch as a dense white cloud “appeared nearly in the centre of the most enormous one of pitchy blackness”.
More than forty flashes of lightening, “electric fluid of a white and blueish colour”, were counted in less than a minute and this was followed by a heavy hail storm which caused:
” . . . a dreadful havoc – tearing up grass by the roots, breaking the branches of trees and underwood, striking off the heads of corn, particularly the barley, and smiting every herb of the field . . . all the dwelling houses on these farms the wreck of glass windows is surprising. In several places the glass was found reduced to a fine powder and the hail lay buried in the earth in large masses, some of which were five feet deep.”
REV. RICHARD POLWHELE – A DISCOURSE PREACHED AT THE PARISH CHURCH OF MANACCAN, 27TH AUGUST 1797
The farmers around the Helford calculated that the damage to crops and property had cost them in the region of £600, which is around £46,000 in today’s money.
It is impossible to know what people in the area were thinking at the time, but the Cornish are a highly superstitious lot and it seems likely that some would have seen the unusual storm as some kind of ill-omen, perhaps a message from a higher power or a demonstration of the wrath of God.
Polwhele certainly promoted this interpretation, he said that the storm “should teach us to look up constantly to Him, who alone can send a blessing or a curse on the labours of a husbandman.”
The Burial
“Thus then we observe by one fatal stroke two flourishing families are laid low – their happiness, in a manner, torn up by the roots in one momentary storm”
REV. RICHARD POLWHELE – A DISCOURSE PREACHED AT THE PARISH CHURCH OF MANACCAN, 27TH AUGUST 1797
Richard Roskruge and his wife Joan had been married for 20 years at the time of his death. We can easily imagine that she would have been distraught by what had happened to her husband and bitter that his murderer was on the run.
Unfortunately Richard had also died without making a will and so Joan was forced to deal with the legal implications of this. Cornwall’s Record Office Kresen Kernow holds a document signed by her dated 30th September 1797 in which she was forced to swear an oath to the Archdeaconry of Cornwall that she would settle Richard’s debts and provide them with a full inventory of his goods and chattels.
At some time between her husband’s death and his funeral at St Anthony in Meneage Church, the church where they had been married, Joan must have approached Rev. Polwhele with the words that she wanted carved on her husband’s headstone.
Along with his name and date of death she had composed this rather scathing epitaph:
"Ah! Rueful Fate! Beneath in dust I lie, Doomed by a cruel ruffian's hand to die: By a merciless blow he struck my brain so sure That death ensued & lo! I am no more."
Polwhele describes in the Gentlemen’s Magazine of 1798 (No.68, pg. 321) how he managed to persuade the widow that her words were inappropriate.
Together they settled on the ones that can be seen on Richard’s headstone to this day:
"This stone is dedicated to the memory of Richard Roskruge who was killed while in the execution of his office as Surveyor of the Highways by a blow on his head with a biddax. 14th August 1797 aged 66 Doomed by a neighbour's erring hand to die, For him my spirit breath from Heaven a sigh, O! While Repentant Prayers the dead attone, Be mine to waft them to the Eternal Throne."
Joan herself passed away three days after the 30th anniversary of Richard’s death in 1824 and was laid to rest in the same grave.
As far as I can establish John Rashleigh was never caught or charged with Richard Roskruge’s murder.
And Polwhele’s sermon may give a clue as to why that might have been the case.
The Sermon
“On the fugitive who is now evading the Sword of the Law, we should surely look with impartiality and not extenuate his crime from any false compassion . . . Nor should we attempt to palliate an act in itself so desperately wicked.”
REV. RICHARD POLWHELE – A DISCOURSE PREACHED AT THE PARISH CHURCH OF MANACCAN, 27TH AUGUST 1797
It appears that Rev. Polwhele hoped that his sermon, as well as giving comfort, would impress the word of God “more deeply” in the hearts of his congregation and make them think about the consequences of misjudging their neighbours, of making poor choices and of their own sinful lives.
While there was an implication that God himself had made a visitation to their parish and that they should be mindful of his power, Polwhele was also making them aware of something else.
He was telling them that he knew that some of the people sitting before him, their faces upturned towards him from the wooden pews, had sympathy for the murderer. That they were perhaps protecting him and that he was not best pleased.
“You turn advocates for the man whose brutality should excite horror and after horror hath subsided, the strongest indignation. You say, that the fatal action arose from ungovernable passion. You would represent him as not himself, as impelled by a sort of agency which could not be resisted.”
The vicar accused the congregation of adopting these excuses for a murderer so that they themselves can feel as if they can’t or won’t be held accountable for their own “passions”, their own mistakes, when they make them.
Polwhele lectures them about “rancorous hatred” and the dangers of revenge and vengeance.
“He who fosters in his breast the malignant spirit of resentment must inflict on himself perpetual torment – must suffer pangs most corroding whilst he is planning schemes of vengeance.”
Alluding to Rashleigh without ever mentioning him by name he says that anyone who actually acts in revenge or with violence must now be ostracised from a God-fearing community.
The person who has struck the blow . . . sees himself marked out as infamous – contemned by the world and dreaded by his acquaintance. Forbidden to enter the dwelling of others, from his own house he has effectually banished all the pleasures of friendship.”
The vicar explains that such a man has only brought misery on his fellow creatures and can never be trusted again, that he must always be feared.
Final Thoughts
I can’t help but wonder who exactly was listening from the pews of Manaccan Church to the sermon given by Rev. Polwhele that Sunday in 1797. Was Joan Roskruge there? Was the wife and family of John Rashleigh listening? Were there people there who knew where the murderer was hiding.?
As I said at the beginning there is still much we don’t and probably can’t know – what was the argument between Roskruge and Rashleigh about? Where the attack happen? Were there witnesses? Was Rashleigh ever apprehended? How did he escape, did he have help, and did he ever return?
All this will probably remain a mystery, something to ponder as you stand beside Richard Roskruge’s grave . . .
Further Reading:
Wartime Cornwall – a Haven for the French Resistance & Europe’s Refugees
The Murder of Billy Kinsman – Cornishman shot dead in Tombstone