Cornish Wrecking 1700-1860

<p>Although the popular myth of Cornish wrecking is well-known within British culture this book is the first comprehensive systematic inquiry to separate out the layers of myth from the actual practices. Weaving in legal social and cultural history it traces the development of wreck law - the right to salvage goods washed on shore - and explores the responses of a coastal populace who found their customary practices increasingly outside the law especially as local individual rights were being curtailed and the role of centralised authority asserted. By investigating the relationship between legal salvage and illegal wrecking it shows how the populace developed their own moral entitlement and mechanisms which allowed them to practise wrecking salvaging and lifesaving activities simultaneously.<br /><br />This groundbreaking study also considers the myths surrounding wrecking showing how these developed over time and how moral attitudes towards wrecking changed. Overall the picture of evil wreckers deliberately luring ships onto the rocks is dispelled to be replaced by a detailed picture of a coastal populace - poor and gentry alike - who were involved in a multi-faceted sophisticated coastal practice and who had their own complex popular beliefs about the harvest and salvage of goods washing ashore from shipwreck.</p><p> </p>