From Dumnonia to perfidious Albion

Pesky things, original sources. Those who like to quote selectively from the Royal Commission on the Constitution 1969-73 Volume 1 (better known in the blogosphere as the Kilbrandon Report, named after Baron Kilbrandon, a Scottish judge and Law Lord, formerly known as Charles Shaw; died 1989) tend to leave out these bits, even though they are from the same paragraph and pages (para 329, pages 101-102):

"Cornwall has, however, been governed as part of England for a thousand years and, despite its individual character and strong sense of regional identity, there is no evidence that its people generally have a wish to see it separated for the purposes of government from the rest of England. What they do want is recognition of the fact that Cornwall has a separate identity and that its traditional boundaries shall be respected. While we studied with interest evidence presented to us, we have not been able to find ways in which this demand could be met within any framework of constitutional change that we would consider appropriate."

Not much comfort there for the nationalist cause. But a few sentences later:

"The creation of the Duchy of Cornwall in the fourteenth century may have been in some respects a mark of English overlordship, but it established a special and enduring relationship between Cornwall and the Crown. Use of the designation on all appropriate occasions would serve to recognise both this special relationship and the territorial integrity of Cornwall, on which our witnesses laid great stress."

As I have blogged before, Kilbrandon was careful to use the word "appropriate" - there is not even a hint of "should" or "ought" or "must" call Cornwall a Duchy. And Kilbrandon's context (usually ignored by those who seek to quote him) is in terms of the "relationship between Cornwall and the Crown." In other words, he was sucking up to the Royals. And is he being just the teensiest bit patronising towards those witnesses "who laid great stress" on Cornwall's territorial integrity?

There are 580 pages in the Kilbrandon Report and several references to Cornwall - in all of them Kilbrandon calls Cornwall a county. For heaven's sake, he even lumps Cornwall in with a South West region (para 221, page 70):

"The new counties of Avon, Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Gloucestershire, Somerset and Wiltshire will be in the region."

The Kilbrandon Report is now 40 years old and of dubious relevance. Commissioned by Harold Wilson, published by Edward Heath, it lead to important reforms in Scottish law, particularly in relation to children's rights. Its main contribution towards modern British politics was to lay the groundwork for early thinking on Scottish and Welsh devolution.


But a clear mandate for calling Cornwall a Duchy? Definitely not clear at all, and certainly not in the context that some Cornish nationalists claim.