WILLIAM COREN (168?-1750) was probably born in the 1680's. We know little about his early life, save that he had a brother. There is evidence that he and Ralph Corin (1700-1763) were related. In 1713 be was living in Penzance borough, and on 1 August 1713 he married Mary James in Madron parish church.

The couple were probably members of the Independent Meeting House in Penzance, which had been erected in 1707 in East Street. The independent congregation in Penzance had grown up around Joseph Sherwood, the vicar of St Hilary who had been ejected in 1662 and who had retired to a house in St Erth, riding to preach in St Ives and Penzance on Sundays until his death in 1705.

William seems to have accumulated a number of small parcels of property during his life. In 1737, he was involved in a transaction regarding a field called Long Meadow at Lescudjack, leased to Thomas James, on which his three sons were lives (the landowner was James Frances Buller of Morval and Shillingham, who had been M.P. for Saltash (his will dated 4 November 1745 was proved in the PCC on 1 February 1752)). At this time William was described as 'of Gulval', as he was two years later in 1739 when his son William married. At the time of his death he leased a tenement in Pendrea in Gulval from John Stephens, a St Ives merchant - he bequeathed it to his son William. But by this time he also owned two other houses. One was on the cliff at Chyandour ('the house by the water' - before the road and railway were built it was at the mouth of a small cove, and had a mill and smelting house). This had two separate apartments in it. At his death, William left the upper, or western, part to his son Jacob, and the lower to his son John. The other house was in Madron, and had been let to an Alexander Brea until his death, and later to William's nephew John. From this property, he seems to have been well-to-do, although he did not sign his name to his will.

In this will, William describes himself as a cordwainer, a trade also carried on by his son (or grandson) John, his son Jacob and his grandson Jacob. This was a very common urban occupation - James Whetter found that over 21 percent of identifiable urban craftsmen with probate inventories were in the leather trades. There was a tanning pool at Chyandour, which was a source of leather. Shoemaking was a profitable business in the cities - in London and Winchester shoes fetched 4/- a pair between 1700 and 1790, at a time when miners in Gulval received 1/- a day, which was considered a very high wage. However, life was not always good, for Penzance borough accounts record the payment of 5/- in 1747/8 to some poor families 'when leather was scarce and no work was to be had'.

It seems likely that William had a smallholding in the Pendrea/Chyandour/Lescudjack area and farmed during some of his life as well. The leather he worked may have come from his own cattle.

He was also involved in the mining industry. This was growing rapidly in importance in the second half of the 17th century. Penzance had become a coinage town, where the tin was taxed, in 1663, and there was a smelting house, owned by the Bolitho family, in Chyandour. Mines were run as small 'cost-book' companies. Two or three men secured a lease and induced others to join them. They might associate with a banker, a smelter, iron-, timber-, candle- and cordage-merchants, and possibly with a dealer in second-hand machinery. There were also 'out-adventurers', who were pure investors. The arrangement and number of shares was entered in a cost book. William was a member of a company engaged in mining at Trewellard, in St Just, where Geevor and Levant mines are now. This area, and the Wheal Bal area to the east of Trewellard, was riddled with small mines at this time.

It is perhaps with people like William Coren in mind that Risden Darracott, the Independent minister at Penzance from 1738 to 1740, spoke of the 'very substantial, very affectionate and truly religious' people, who compensated for the smallness of his flock. It appears that cordwainers were frequently members of nonconformist congregations, perhaps because the shop provided a convenient place for people to drop in for a chat. William left 16/- a year to the Meeting House in his will (a groat a week).

After the year 'when leather was scarce and no work was to be had' (1747/8), the following winter was one of the severest in the century, with floods in Chyandour early in 1749. Perhaps this affected William's health, for on 30 July 1749 he drew up his will.

He died in February of the next year, and was buried on February 10, 1750, at Gulval.

William's wife, Mary Coren, survived him. She continued to live in Chyandour for another sixteen years. She was buried on 19 January 1766 at Gulval.

William's will, proved at 'Madderne' on 9 March 1750, reads as follows:

William and Mary Coren had five children:

1 JACOB COREN (1714-1785), born in 1714. The name Jacob was not a common one: in Madron the only Jacobs recorded were a Jacob Boase baptized in 1695, a Jacob Lobb in 1712, and a Jacob Stephens baptized in the same year that our Jacob was born, and it is interesting to speculate how the name came into the family. Jacob, like his father, worked as a cordwainer. On 21 July 1749, perhaps in connection with his father's illness (William's will is dated nine days later), he purchased leases on three properties in the barton of Tolver at Gulval. These leases are preserved in the Lemon family papers.

The first of these, the bigger tenement, consisted of "Higher Gweleandown, Gweleandrea, Tinners Field, Sheep Close, Long Close, Higher Croft adjoining Common Downs, Western Croft, Great Orchard which joins to Gweleandrea, Mowhay Barn, Stable and Oxen House, and a convenient proportion of the Town place as the same is now apportioned and marked out likewise", as well as parts of the Mansion House, namely the Hall and its entrance from the front of the house, the parlour and dairy with the chambers over them; together with common of pasture and turbary on High Downs. Jacob was 34, and the other lives on the lease were William aged 9, son of William, and William aged 13 (a draughtsman's error for 15?), son of Ralph. William senior and Ralph senior were Jacob's cousins. The consideration for this lease was £582, and the annual rent was £2/5/-, with a heriot of £3.

The lives for the second lease were Jacob, and Ralph Corin, aged 14, another son of Ralph senior, in this lease described as a carrier, and Haniball Thomas, aged 12, son of Haniball Thomas of Zennor. This lease was of the lesser tenement, consisting of Lower Gwelandown, Park Shoata, Lower Park Chambers, Dorzea Close, Dorzea Croft, Kings Croft Reens; of the Mansion House the kitchen and buttery, with the chambers over them, the back court with the Hog Styes, two orchards, one behind the mowhay and outhouses, the other adjoining Reens, part of the town plot, and pasture and turbary on High Downs. The consideration paid was £384, the annual rent £1/15/3 and the heriot £2/10/-.

The third lease was over the tenement at Long Rock. The lives were Jacob, and Henry aged 11 and Samuel aged 8, both sons of Samuel Phillips, a yeoman of Gulval. The consideration was £28. The rent was 10/- and the heriot 30/-.

Jacob still described himself as a cordwainer in 1768 when he took a further 99-year lease of Tolver in Gulval from William Veale (the lease was on the lives of his nephews and nieces Jacob, Jane, Susanna and Ann). For the latter part of his life he lived at Tolver, which was a substantial farmhouse: in 1777 it was assessed for 11 windows. He also held land at Bosullow, Long Rock, Boswarthen and Lescudjack.

He and William James were Overseers of the Poor for the parish of Madron in 1756, although by the following year he had certainly ceased living in his father's old house at Chyandour. (His status as a Madron resident was assured by his holding Great Bosullow, which appears on a 1768 list of holdings valued at over £10 per annum.)

Jacob never married, and when he died, on 23 May 1785 at Tolver, he left the residue of his considerable property to his nephew, Jacob, who also shares a headstone with him in Gulval churchyard. His will is dated eight days before his death, and he was buried on 27 May 1785.

Jacob's will provides a key to sorting out the various branches of the Corin family at this time, and its fifteen bequests are abstracted below. It was proved at Gulval on 24 June 1785.

2 WILLIAM COREN (?1716-1788), of whom more anon.

3 JOHN COREN (?1720-?1801). The date of his birth is uncertain. It is unlikely that he is the 'John Goram' baptized on 12 August 1727 at Gulval, and he was probably born about 1720. He may have married Mary Warren at Madron in 1748, but it is far likelier that he married Elizabeth Harris at Sancreed on 25 April 1747. She was the daughter of Charles Harris of Tregerrow in Sancreed.

Like his father, John was a cordwainer, and on his father's death in 1750 he became the owner of the lower, or eastern, part of the house at Chyandour. He was still there until after 1791, and could well have been the John Corin, senior, cordwainer, listed in a 1797 directory. He probably died in 1801 and was buried in Gulval on 21 January 1801. John and Elizabeth Corin seem to have been Congregationalists like their father.

It is possible that John and Elizabeth had eleven children.

4 JOSEPH CORIN (17??-1731) died in infancy, and was buried at Gulval on 20 January 1731.

5 MARY CORIN (17??-?) married George Noy, a carpenter of Penzance, on 7 December 1751. From 1761 to 1783 they lived in the next house to William and Jacob Corin at Chyandour. They had at least seven children: