In the 1920s Cornwall adopted Frederick Albert Mitchell-Hedges as one of their own and he in turn returned here again and again to relax, to write and to give lectures to rapt audiences. Always a controversial figure, Mitchell-Hedges was a traveller, an adventurer, a hunter of sea-monsters and is believed by many to have been the inspiration behind the fictional movie hero, Indiana Jones.

But he is probably best remembered as the ‘discoverer’ of enigmatic crystal skull.

Much has been written about this man’s incident-packed and at times extremely far-fetched life, by Mitchell-Hedges himself and others, so there is no need for me to repeat it in much detail here but what I intend to do is discuss Mitchell-Hedges connections to Cornwall and its people.

That is where my interest lies and an area of his life that has generally been overlooked.

What You Need to Know About Mitchell-Hedges

‘When you are young and strong and full of hope, sit down one day and think about the world. Decide what you would like to do above all else – and then go and do it.’  – FA Mitchell Hedges, Danger. My Ally, 1954

The general conclusion about this man seems to be that it is very hard to distinguish between fact and fantasy, between hyperbole and reality. He was the consummate storyteller and self-promotor, and in a time when the public were lapping up tales lost civilisations, encounters with vicious savages and near-death derring-do, Mitchell-Hedges was like a pipe-smoking Indiana Jones, David Livingstone and Laurence of Arabia all rolled into one.

But having said all that, there are a few things about him that we do know were almost certainly true, though admittedly, even some of that sounds made up.

Frederick Albert Hedges (the Mitchell was added later) was born in Islington in 1882 and from the beginning he seems to have bucked against living any kind of mediocre, humdrum existence. He was a difficult student, left school at 16 and joined a copper-prospecting expedition to Norway. Aged just 18 he worked at the London Stock Exchange before going to New York in 1901, returning to England 5 years later he married Lilian Agnes ‘Dolly’ Clarke. He then took up stocking broking again but wasn’t very good at it and was declared bankrupt in 1912.

After this set back Mitchell-Hedges bounced around from job to job in places as far flung as New York, New Orleans and Texas. In 1913 he was captured by marauding bandits in Mexico and shot twice in the leg. This injury meant that he was rejected when he tried to enlist for service during WWI. It is said that MI6 did try to recruit him as a spy in 1914 but he declined. Around this time he also adopted ten-year-old Anne-Marie ‘Anna’ Le Guillon, the orphaned daughter of some friends from Ontario in Canada.

Like every British gentleman of the era, he enjoyed fishing, hunting and shooting and claimed to have set a World Record for firing a machine gun in 1921.

But his adventures and his fame really began in the 1920s when he met the Lady Lilian Richmond Brown. Wealthy, beautiful and adventurous Lilian, known as ‘Mabs’, accompanied Mitchell-Hedges on his Indiana Jones style journeys and crucially seems to have funded many of these trips – which leads us to the pairs’ first appearance in Cornwall.

Falmouth

In 1921 the newspapers reported that Mitchell-Hedges was leading an expedition to the Caribbean in search of “prehistoric sea monsters” and the “origins of the Aztecs”. The expedition, which included Lady Richmond Brown, departed on RMS Bayano in September 1921, also visited Central America and did not return to the UK until April 1923.

During the trip Mitchell-Hedges claimed to have caught a stingray weighing 410lb with a rod and line – another World Record according to the Daily Herald in June 1922 – and to have captured a “man-eating shark” while in Jamaica. He also wrote to the Daily Express of his “strange discoveries in Panama” and British Honduras (Belize):

“I have managed to get into the Chucunaque country, and return with probably the most wonderful collection of gods, native dresses, necklaces of animals’ teeth, human teeth and human bones, chief sticks, weapons, etc, that has ever yet come from the hinterland of this part of the world . . . I have changed the map, the President of Panama, his Excellency Dr. Belisario Porras, expressing to me his thanks that I have named the great range of mountains I discovered the “Porras Range.” Dr. South, the American Minister, thanked me on behalf of the American nation for naming one of the great peaks “Harding Peak,” after the President of the United States of America. – Daily Express, 16 June 1922.

The claims of what exactly the expedition had uncovered became more and more far-fetched, especially after the man himself had arrived home laden with discoveries:

“An astounding report of discovery which, in many respects, the ‘Daily Sketch” remarks, seems to be of far greater import than even the recent disclosures at Luxor, has just been made in London by Mr. F. A. Mitchell-Hedges, F.L.S., of Parkstone, Dorset, the traveller and hunter, who returned last week from two years of exploration in Central America.

Surrounded by scientists famous throughout the world, Mr. Mitchell-Hedges on Wednesday calmly discussed the existence of a hitherto unknown race of people; described his reception by these people who never before had looked upon white man, and then displayed to his hearers the tangible evidence of the truth of a story of scientific research far beyond the the wildest invention of fiction.

Piled high in a closely-guarded room, loaned by Mr. Gordon Selfridge, are thousands of different objects which re-open all investigations into the civilisations of ten thousand years ago. Among them are squares of picture writings which, when the key is found, may give the world a new history of the early human migrations. Mummified remains of men and women living centuries ago, but whose descendants still live, prove the heretofore nebulous theory that America was first settled by the Chinese.

In another corner of the room there are relics which give proof that animals of the Jurassic period, thought be extinct for of years, still live.” – Western Gazette, 20th April 1923

There were other articles claiming that the explorer had discovered not only lost tribes but lost continents and even found Atlantis.

In May 1923 the Western Morning News reported that Mitchell-Hedges and his companion, Lady Richmond Brown, had arrived in Falmouth on their yacht Cara and would be staying at the Falmouth Hotel while the explorer wrote a book about their adventurers. This volume became Battles with Giant Fish.

While the pair rested in the town Mitchell-Hedges spoke to the Western Morning News and explained that the couple planned to stay in Cornwall for at least the next two years. In an interview that even the reporter wrote was of “far-fetched importance to the scientific world” the explorer also explained his belief that prehistoric sea monsters still existed in deep waters and then filled several column inches with descriptions of the various big fish he had caught at great personal danger and with super-human skill.

Mitchell-Hedges clearly intended to settle in Cornwall, if only on a semi-permanent basis, because in June 1923 he purchased the Trenance Estate at Mawgan Porth near Newquay.

The property which included 330 acres of coastal farmland as well as a farmhouse, cottages and outbuildings was sold at auction at the Red Lion Hotel in St Columb on 18th June. Whether Mitchell-Hedges actually attended the sale isn’t clear but his name was later announced in the papers as the purchaser.

But he was never going to stay put for long.

The Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society in Falmouth, Cornwall’s leading centre for scientific thought and discovery, had invited the “eminent scientist and explorer” to speak at their annual exhibition and towards the end of June he gave a lecture on “the capture of giant fish”. The talk must have gone down a storm because the Society made their guest a life-time member in August 1923.

More lectures followed in November, this time there was mentioned of “preserved human heads” . . . and perhaps it was at one of these events that Mitchell-Hedges made the acquaintance of the Cornish artist, Henry Scott Tuke (1858-1929) who was living at Swanpool at that time.

Tuke, Jamaica & the Manatee

Some biographies of Mitchell-Hedges suggest that the explorer and Henry Scott Tuke, the artist, met in Jamaica but as the Western Morning News reports that the pair, along with Lady Richmond Brown, left for the Caribbean together in November 1923 it seems more likely that they met in Falmouth.

Indeed the paper noted:

“Mr. Henry Scott Tuke, R.A., seems to have sensed the atmosphere created by Mr. Mitchell-Hedges and Lady Richmond Brown at their lectures and writings that he has decided to accompany the party, and hopes to portray on canvas some of the remarkable scenes of which there is no doubt he will eye-witness. Royal Academicians are proverbially conservative, and it will interesting see effect the lure of the tropics has on Mr. Tuke’s work.”

The purpose of this latest expedition was stated to be to capture a “sea-cow” or manatee for London Zoo. The Zoological Society had just built a new aquarium and wanted the aquatic mammal for their display. Apparently a manatee had never been caught alive before and this was a challenge for Mitchell-Hedges . . . It was also timed perfectly to coincide with the publication of his new book Battles with Giant Fish released that same month to mixed reviews.

It contained chapters with titles such as: Face to Face with Death, The Horrors of the Deep Encountered and Four Hour Battle with a Mighty Tarpon. He was nothing if not self-aggrandising!

“With its brutalities and evil smells and unexpected ghastly dangers, what a surprising and wonderful world it is that Mr. Mitchell Hedges reveals, and what a guide . . .” – Review of ‘Battles with Giant Fish’, Daily News, 17 Nov 1923

The party left England for Jamaica and British Honduras (Belize) to great fanfare in the press, this clip from British Pathe shows Mitchell- Hedges around this time supervising his yacht being loaded onto a larger ship for the journey across the ocean.

The expedition lasted less than a year this time, they returned to England in May 1924, but during that time Henry Scott Tuke made several striking paintings of the scenery and people they encountered, while stories of their adventures continued to fill the papers back at home. It was around this time that local papers in Cornwall began referring to Mitchell-Hedges as “the explorer from Falmouth” or even “the Cornish explorer”.

To have him connected to here was seen as accolade worth celebrating.

It doesn’t appear that the party succeeded in capturing a manatee however – Mitchell-Hedges had other fish to fry (sorry!).

It was during this trip that he fell in with the archaeologist Dr. Thomas William Francis Gann and together they visited the ruins of the ancient Mayan city of Lubaantun.

And it was here in this isolated corner of Belize that the explorer’s daughter, Anna, would later claim that she had discovered the Crystal Skull . . .

The Crystal Skull in Polperro

The story of the Crystal Skull is perhaps the most famous and controversial of all the bizarre episodes of Mitchell-Hedges’ life. The debate over this object, its age and origins still rattles on to this day.

For a start off there are his sensational claims that he had discovered the forgotten Mayan ruin of Lubaantun, when in fact Dr. Gann had first visited it some 20 years earlier in 1904/1905!

And that comparatively small bending of the truth aside, it is hard to know quite where to start with the story of the Crystal Skull, also known as the Skull of Doom, because events didn’t unfold in a neat chronological order. We know for example that Mitchell-Hedges visited Lubaantun in 1924 and again in 1925 but it was not until the 1940s/1950s that he makes any mention of the skull and its mythical powers.

The explorer claimed that the artefact was over 3000 years old and had been made by generations of ancient craftsmen by hand from a solid piece of rock. They had shaped it he said by rubbing the stone with sand over a couple of hundred years and the skull was sacred and used to curse your enemies.

Mitchell-Hedges’ wife, Dolly (yes, she was still alive but the couple had lived apart for many years) lived for some time in Polperro in Cornwall. She was a permanent guest at The Watchers boarding house on the east side of the little harbour and supposedly in the 1930s and 1940s her husband and his adopted daughter Anna visited her there on several occasions.

It has been suggested that during one of those visits Mitchell-Hedges showed the skull to the owner of the guesthouse, as noted by Raymond John Howgego, an expert on this man and his life.

“‘The Watchers’  is a guesthouse, currently owned by Patsy Wilcox. It was recalled by Mrs Wilcox’s grandmother that F and Anna stayed there in the 1930s, so one might assume that Lilian became a long-term resident on F’s [Frederick’s] recommendation. Significantly, when F and Anna were there in the 1930s they were already in possession of the crystal skull, and its sinister qualities were described quite vividly by the guesthouse’s proprietor.”

– Frederick Albert Mitchell-Hedges (1882-1959), Materials towards a definitive biography by Raymond John Howgego.

This story was investigated, rather unsuccessfully, in 2013 by author Tom Fort for his book ‘Channel Shore – From White Cliffs to Land’s End’. Fort claims that he knocked on the door of the guesthouse and the then proprietor was less than keen to discuss the episode – not because she feared some kind of curse but because she was fed up of people asking about it. Fort writes:

“I asked her if it was true – as related by Howgego – the Mitch [Mitchell-Hedges] had shown her grandfather the Skull of Doom. She said he had told her that Mitch produced it at a dinner also attended by well-known Polperro painter Fred Cook and his wife, and had rolled it along the table. I then asked her if she remembered Mrs Mitchell-Hedges, which was probably a mistake considering that she was about my own age or a bit younger. ‘What is this, Twenty Questions?’ she demanded. ‘Look, I’m not interested, okay?’ Then she shut the door in my face.”

The story of the skull making an appearance in Polperro in the 1930s is very significant because it was later revealed that despite saying he had found it in Belize there were receipts that showed that Mitchell-Hedges actually bought the artefact at auction in October 1943 for £400.

The seller of the skull was a London art dealer called Sydney Burney who claimed to have bought it in Mexico in 1933. This discrepancy has never been properly explained, although it seems his daughter Anna maybe have intimated that her father had leant or given the skull to Burney and was just buying it back from him.

So, could this episode in Polperro prove the skull was in Mitchell-Hedges’ possession before 1943? Or could those present at the dinner have simply mis-remembered the date?

Falmouth & the Merry Maidens

Mitchell-Hedges had sold his house at Trenance in 1925 but he continued to return to Cornwall, staying in the Falmouth area for much of 1927. He gave lectures at the Poly again in September and November that year and also attended the Cornish Oyster Festival in the town, commenting to the papers that Cornish oysters were the “best in the world”.

The explorer continued to travel, visiting Central America again and bringing back hundreds of objects of interest, many of which were given to the British Museum.

It seems that Mitchell-Hedges also spent some time at Lamorna Cove and visited many of the ancient sites on Penwith. In September 1930 an article appeared in the Western Morning News in which he discussed his theories about a connection between Cornwall and South America.

“Mitchell-Hedges, internationally noted explorer, has returned from Honduras and Nicaragua, where he conducted an expedition to find cities and Indian tribes lost since the Mayan period. Describing “the remains of great religious site or the centre of a city of incalculable antiquity,” Mr. Mitchell- Hedges comments: “I have visited Stonehenge, on Salisbury Plain, in England, and have also seen the strange Druidical circles in Cornwall, and of one fact there is no question: whether by coincidence or not, here, in a remote part of Central America, is an exact replica of the Druidical stone formations that can be seen in Cornwall, England, particularly the stone circle known as Merry Maidens, near Lamorna Cove, Pennzance, Cornwall. But there this difference. The Monolithic stones Cornwall are in a far better state of preservation. In fact, though known to be an immense age, they appear to be comparatively modern when contrasted with the stones found this ancient site in the Republic Honduras.”

Legacy & Reputation

Mitchell Hedges’ reputation was seriously tarnished after he reported that he had been attacked and robbed of a case of papers and five or six shrunken heads in January 1927. The attack cause a great deal of interest and sympathy but there was soon suspicion that Mitchell-Hedges himself had hired the men involved as a publicity stunt. When the Daily Express newspaper printed the allegations he sued them for libel, but during the trial in 1928 the robbery was indeed exposed as a hoax and rather embarrassingly he lost the suit. This outcome inevitably brought everything that Mitchell-Hedges had ever claimed into question. 

He published several books in his lifetime about his adventures including Battles With Giant Fish (1923), Land of Wonder and Fear (1931), Battling Sea Monsters (1937), Danger, My Ally (1954). The British archaeologist J. Eric S. Thompson apparently commented about the book Land of Wonder and Fear that “to me the wonder was how he could write such nonsense and the fear was how much taller the next yarn would be”.

After his death in 1959 the Crystal Skull, or Skull of Doom, was inherited by his adopted daughter, Anna and she seems to have done everything she could to add to and promote its mystique.

She tried to claim that it was she who had discovered it while travelling with her father on his trip to British Honduras in 1924, but there is absolute no evidence that she was ever even on this trip, or on any other expedition to the region. Her father never mentions the discovery in his letters, notes or books, and tellingly her descriptions of the circumstances of the discovery were inconsistent too. Sometimes she said she found the skull beneath an altar, sometimes that she had been lowered into some kind of tomb on a rope, sometimes that it had been given to her father or that he had traded food for it with a local priest or witchdoctor.

A letter from Mitchell-Hedges to his brother written in December 1943 is more evidence of the object’s true provenance:

“The “Collection” grows and grows and grows. You possibly saw in the papers that I acquired that amazing Crystal Skull that was formerly in the “Sydney Burney Collection.” It is fashioned from a single block of transparent rock crystal, exactly life size; scientists put the date at pre-1800 B.C., and they estimate it took five generations passing from Father to son, to complete. It is anthropologically perfect in every detail, a superb piece of craftsmanship. There is only one other in the world known like it, which is in the British Museum and it is acknowledged to be not so fine as this.“

In 1960 Anna appeared on the BBC with the skull and you can watch that interview from the BBC Archive HERE.

While she was alive Anna would not allow any tests to be carried out on the skull but after her death a microscopic examination of it was made in 2007, looking for evidence of how it had been made. The tests concluded that although it was indeed cut from a single natural piece of crystal toolmarks determined that it was most likely made in the 1930s and was probably a copy of a similar one that had been on display in the British Museum.

Make of that what you will.

This author makes no comment on her thoughts on the authenticity of the Mitchell-Hedges’ Crystal Skull . . .

There are still those that firmly believe Anna Mitchell-Hedges version of events and that the skull has dark, unearthly powers . . . and the object is now in the possession of Bill Homann who still makes some surprising claims about its origins and abilities.

If you are interested you can even book a Zoom meeting with the skull for $350!

Whatever you might think of Mitchell-Hedges’ theories, his methods or indeed his integrity, there can be little doubt that he did make significant contributions to the understanding of and interest in other cultures and civilisations.

The British Museum still holds 409 objects donated to their collection by him and Lady Richmond Brown, including weapons, pottery, wood carvings and textiles and that alone is a tangible and important legacy.

Further Reading:

Samuel Wallis: Cornish Explorer

Tangier Island, Virginia – a forgotten community founded by Cornish fishermen

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