ESTABLISHED in 1928 by Archdruid Pedrog of Wales at the request of a group of Cornish scholars, Gorseth Kernow — the Cornish Gorseth — has since that time been committed to reviving and sustaining “an spyrys Keltek Kenethlek a Gernow” — the national Celtic Spirit of Cornwall.
At the time of the inaugural Gorseth, held at the megalithic Boscawen-Un stone circle (the site of such a gathering recorded in old Welsh sources), that spirit was flickering faintly. For centuries Brythonic Celtic culture had been in retreat under severe pressure from that of its Anglo-Saxon neighbour. In decline from the end of the Middle Ages onwards, Cornish (Kernewek) had finally expired as a living language in 1777, with the death of the last native speaker, Dolly Pentreath, of Mousehole. Her defiant last words were: “Me ne vidn cewsel Sawsnek!” — “I don’t want to speak English!”
A proud tradition of Cornish miracle plays was all but forgotten. The county was to become a holiday playground for those bold enough to venture west of the River Tamar. Cornwall was in grave peril of being thought of solely in terms of pasties, mead and serpentine model lighthouses bought at the Lizard.
Modelling itself on the Gorsedd of Wales — itself an ingenious 18th-century reincarnation of a medieval association (held not in Wales but on Primrose Hill, London, in 1792) — the new Cornish movement set itself to stem this tide.
Of the succession of Grand Bards who presided over this revival in Cornwall’s sense of indentity, George Pawley White (Gunwyn), who has died at Camborne, was the fourth. In office from 1964 to 1970, Gunwyn was a vigorous promoter, through various educational institutions, of the Cornish language, which he had begun learning in the 1940s after returning home from wartime service in India.
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Today it is estimated that 3,500 (0.7 per cent) of the population are capable of conversing in Cornish, with perhaps 500 attaining true fluency.
Pawley White was also a central figure in the life of Cornish Methodism, having begun as a local preacher at the age of 18. After a vocation that took him in old age all over the world, preaching before congregations in Delhi, Soweto, South Africa and Australia, he was still conducting services in Cornwall until his 90th year.
George Pawley White was born in 1907 and educated at Penzance Grammar School. At 12 he became the organist at Richmond Methodist Church, Penzance. At 15 he left school and joined Bolitho’s (now Barclays) Bank where he was to spend his working life. Starting as a clerk he rose to manage a number of branches throughout Cornwall over the next 30 years. As a young clerk he met Henry Jenner, yet to become the first Grand Bard, and was deeply impressed by the majesty of the man’s spirit.
On the outbreak of war in September 1939 he volunteered at first for the ambulance service. But in 1941 he joined the RAF and went out to India as an equipment officer. He soon found himself becoming, also, a nonconformist padre and welfare officer.
After the war he returned to Barclays, serving as manager of branches in Callington, Hayle and Camborne. He and his wife, Ethel, whom he had married in October 1939, began to learn Cornish, and in 1947 they were both created language bards by the Grand Bard of the day, R. Morton Nance. Pawley White took the name Gunwyn (White Moor), his wife Rosvur (Great Heath).
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His parents were Liberals and he was for long an active worker for the party. But he became convinced that true support for Cornwall’s way of life and economy could come only through a commitment to nationalism, and became, in 1951, a founding member of Mebyon Kernow (Sons of Cornwall) of which he was the first treasurer.
After becoming the fourth Grand Bard in 1964 he was active in promoting a College of Bards and in establishing the Esethvos Kernow (Cornish eisteddfod). Spreading awareness of the revived Cornish language was the bedrock of his concerns. He was a strong supporter of the Institute of Cornish Studies and of the Cornish Language Board, becoming the first secretary of its examinations committee.
He made sure that the Cornish Gorseth maintained close links with other Celtic communities, particularly those of Wales and Brittany. After the death of his wife he embarked at the age of 80 on a world tour to South Africa, India, America and Australasia, leading Bardic gatherings at Moonta in “Little Cornwall”, South Australia — where he also preached at the Wallaroo Mine — and Ballarat, Victoria. He was a life member of the Cornish associations of both states.
Much of his preaching in churches and chapels in Cornwall was in Cornish, and he published a book of hymns and psalms in the language. He also wrote other works, among them one on Cornish surnames, and A Half Century of Cornish Methodism, 1925-1975, about his preaching.
His wife died in 1987, and he is survived by his son.
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George Pawley White (Gunwyn), Grand Bard of the Cornish Gorseth, 1964-70, was born on May 26, 1907. He died on August 24, 2006, aged 99.