St Peter’s Feast Day, June 29, 1885. Charles Campbell Ross, MP for St Ives, laid the foundation stone of the new South Pier at Newlyn.

The new pier, completed in 1813, represented an extension of 150 feet which significantly increased the capacity of the harbour but not all vessels wished to pay the increased dues...................

They came in cars from Newquay, Perranporth, Redruth, Camborne, Hayle, St Ives and scores of other places………. A sight that will probably never be repeated….. (The Cornishman 21 May 1936)

All is not well at St Ives. The fishermen have been bringing good money into the town – their official returns for the year up £5,000 last year to £52,000. Money like this should – surely – bring a substantial voice...........

The Channel swarmed with French privateers that seized English merchant vessels on an almost daily basis. This was the fate of the brig, Friendship – a vessel of 15 tons burthen, built at Swansea in 1801 and partly owned by Josias Sincock of St Ives.

The St Ives built schooner Eldred left for Swansea with her first cargo on 26 March 1829. Eldred had been launched on 20 January and Lloyd's Register for 1830 shows her to have been a single deck schooner of 93 tons skippered and owned by J. Matthews. Her crew on that first trip was probably something in order of five men and a ship's boy.

It’s first thing Monday morning. Never a good time, not for anyone who has to work for a living, but on the deck of the steamer Hayle the men are getting back into harness for another normal week’s routine.

Penzance has every reason to be pleased with itself. The new floating dock is nearing completion, and tonight, the engineers are to close the new coffer dam and keep the sea out.........

Cornubia was the only iron passenger vessel ever built in Cornwall and between 4000 and 5000 people are estimated to have turned up to watch the launch. 

But now, after the first winter of what will soon be called the Great War, those lads are not so sure. And in Penzance, on February 18^th 1915, matters have come to a head. They know that, should they be drowned or blown to smithereens, their families will be given ample compensation. But that doesn’t seem like enough.