A book of the west. Volume 2, Cornwall

by S. Baring-Gould

The name of Mitchell given it was surely given in satire, for in Cornish this word signifies greatness.

The place consists at present of nineteen houses. At the time of its disfranchisement it had 180 inhabitants, but only three of these were qualified to vote, whose names were Retallack, Vincent, and Parker, and these three returned the two last members who sat for Mitchell.

A few sycamore and ash and thorn trees brave the gales that sweep the desolate slope on which the old borough stands. It has a handsome old inn with granite porch, some quaint old houses, one with the date 1683 on the parvise, and a diminutive town hall.

Whether the borough ever had a seal is uncertain: no impressions are known to exist. The town hall has gone through a series of uses since the place ceased to be a borough. For a while after 1832 it was a dame’s school, then was converted into a Wesleyan chapel, then into one of the Church of England, next into a manure store, then into a carpenter’s shop, and now it is a beer brewery, in a hamlet made up almost wholly of total abstainers.

The place, as already said, consists of nineteen houses. There is not a shop there. The dame’s school has been transferred from the town hall to a one-roomed cottage, that crouches under a bank, and is overshadowed by sycamores.

The privileges it possessed proved to it a curse, for if there were voters in it sufficiently independent to think differently from the patron, he tore down their dwellings. After the last election but one Sir Christopher Hawkins swept away numerous cottages from his land, so as to reduce the number of voters, not because they were recalcitrant, but because all demanded payment for their votes; and to diminish the voters, as he did, from eighty to three meant a corresponding reduction in election expenses. At the election of 1831 there was no voting at all. The steward invited some two dozen individuals to dine with him in the inn; of these three only were nominated to vote. A worm-eaten chair was thrust on the balcony of the inn, and the nominee of the patron was declared chosen and chaired.

Immediately after this election the same patron, Sir Christopher Hawkins, pulled down twelve more houses; amongst these a handsome mansion opposite the town hall, that had been erected by Lord Falmouth in 1780, when he was dominant in the borough, and all the stonework was carried away for the construction of Lord Falmouth’s new house at Tregothnan.

In the penultimate election there were but thirteen electors, who were nominated by the patron. But even these were not altogether submissive. A stranger came amongst them, and by large promises induced most of them to agree to vote for him as second representative. Dread of their patron, however, in the end proved too strong, and they returned both his nominees. The stranger, however, assured them that he would send them presents all round, and on a certain day the carrier arrived with a large chest addressed to the free and independent electors of Mitchell. On opening it, the chest was found to be full of stones, and to have thirteen halters on the top properly addressed to the several electors, among whom, by the way, were three parsons.

The unfortunate borough during the later years of its existence was a battleground of many combatants. It was never certain who had the right to vote. This question was left in ambiguity till 1700, and every successive election gave rise to a petition and Parliamentary inquiry.

In 1639, when Courtenay and Chadwell were elected, a petition was sent up to the House appealing against it, and the plea set up was that the members had got in by the aid of voters who were not qualified.