List of members in v. 4-5, 7-10.

Cornwall, the land of sandy beaches, pretty fishing coves, historic fishing ports, tin mining, mansions and gardens, quaint thatched cottages, atmospheric moors, art galleries, writers and picturesque towns? All of that is true but there is so much more to Cornwall and its influence on the rest of Britain and many parts of the world is often forgotten or unknown but yet continues. The county has seen political intrigue; religious upheavals; financial scandals. It has produced political radicals, slaves and slave owners; artists, writers and musicians; renowned engineers, mineralogists and scientists and was the first to introduce compulsory education. Cornwall was the birthplace of the discoverers of chemical elements, the planet Neptune and solar power and has been hugely significant in radio, electrical telegraphy and television. Cornish people have been influential across the centuries, the world and an incredible number of disciplines.

This book uses a wide range of primary sources - legal, literary and demographic - to provide a radical reassessment of eighteenth-century marriage. It disproves the widespread assumption that couples married simply by exchanging consent, demonstrating that such exchanges were regarded merely as contracts to marry and that marriage in church was almost universal outside London. It shows how the Clandestine Marriages Act of 1753 was primarily intended to prevent clergymen operating out of London's Fleet prison from conducting marriages, and that it was successful in so doing. It also refutes the idea that the 1753 Act was harsh or strictly interpreted, illustrating the courts' pragmatic approach. Finally, it establishes that only a few non-Anglicans married according to their own rites before the Act; while afterwards most - save the exempted Quakers and Jews - similarly married in church. In short, eighteenth-century couples complied with whatever the law required for a valid marriage.