Camelford was invested with the dignity of a borough in 1547, when it was under the control of the Roscarrock family. From them it passed to the Manatons living at Kilworthy, near Tavistock. Then it fell into the hands of an attorney named Phillipps. He parted with his interest to the Duke of Bedford, and he in turn to the Earl of Darlington, afterwards Duke of Cleveland.
The electors were the free burgesses paying scot and lot. "Scot" signifies taxes or rates. But the mayor was the returning officer, and he controlled the election.
In George IV.'s reign there was a warm contest between the Earl of Darlington and Lord Yarmouth. The latter ran up a great building, into which he crowded a number of faggot voters. But the Earl of Darlington possessed rights of search for minerals; so he drove a mine under this structure, and blew it up with gunpowder. The voters hearing what was purposed, ran away in time, and consequently Lord Yarmouth lost the election.
In the election of 1812 each voter received a hundred pounds for his vote. In the election of 1818 the mayor, Matthew Pope, announced his intention of giving the majority to Lord Darlington's nominee, and of turning out of their freeholds all who opposed. The other party had a club called "The Bundle of Sticks," and engaged a chemist named William Hallett, of S. Mary Axe, to manage the election for them, and put £6000 into his hand to distribute among the electors, £400 apiece.
Hanmer and Stewart got ten votes apiece, Milbrook and Maitland thirteen. But there was an appeal, and a new election; but this again led to a petition, and a scandalous story was told of bribery and corruption of the most barefaced description. The election was declared void, and many persons, including Hallett, the chemist, were reported. It was proposed to disfranchise the borough, but George III. died in 1820, and new writs had to be at once issued.
Camelford has no public buildings of interest. It is situate on very high ground, on a wind-blown waste 700 feet above the sea, exposed to furious gales from the Atlantic; but it has this advantage, that it forms headquarters for an excursion to the Bodmin moors, to Brown Willy (1375 feet), and Rough Tor (1250 feet). These tors, though by no means so high as those on Dartmoor, are yet deserving of a visit, on account of their bold outlines, the desolation of the wilderness out of which they rise, and the numerous relics of antiquity strewn over the moors about them.
Of these presently.
The parish church of Camelford, two miles off, is Lanteglos. The dedication is to S. Julitta, but this would seem to have been a rededication, and the true patroness to have been either Jutwara or Jutwell, sister of St. Sidwell, or of Ilut, one of King Brythan's daughters.
There was a royal deer-park there, as the old castle of Helborough, though not occupied, was in the possession of the Duke of Cornwall.
This is really a prehistoric camp of Irish construction, and in the midst of it are the ruins of a chapel to S. Sith or Itha, the Bridget of Munster. Itha had a number of churches ranging from the Padstow estuary to Exeter, showing that this portion of Dumnonia received colonists from the south-west of Ireland. Her name is disguised as Issey and as Teath. She was a remarkable person, as it was she who sent her foster-son Brendan with three ships, manned by thirty in each, on an exploring excursion across the Atlantic to the west, which, possibly, led to the discovery of Madeira in the sixth century. But the truth is so disguised by fable that little certainty can be obtained as to the results of the voyage. Brendan made, in fact, two expeditions; in the first his ships were of wicker, with three coats of leather over the basket frame; the second time, by Itha's advice, he made his boats of timber.