As we’re starting to get global Trewartha’s coming to this little site, I thought I might gather together some basic links about the origin of the surname in a quick post. I’m not going to shy from the obvious, so forgive me.
The Trewartha surname began in Cornwall, the most south-western county of England, at a time when mining, specifically tin mining, dominated that area’s economy. Here are the distributions of the name in the UK according to the electoral registers of 1881 and 1998 (click for larger images)
(‘Trewartha’ clearly is not unique in spreading like this — it is a common feature of the 20th century that names and genes have spread far and wide as we as a species roam more widely, more quickly than ever before, for obvious technological reasons.)
So specifically it started around the (now) city of Truro, where Tin was being produced as early as the 1200s. The city’s Coinage Hall was originally built in the 1300s, and then rebuilt in the 1800s. It now houses a tea room and pizza restaurant. The Hall was where tin was stamped and sold around the world.
If you travel around these places you’ll find plenty of places, and even some people still, called Trevarth, Trevarthen, Trethowan, and of course Trewartha. Going back 4 generations takes my family to Chapel Porth (public photos on flickr.com of Chapel Porth) — 2 miles from St Agnes. Here’s a
long article on the history of mining around St Agnes. [dead link, sorry]
Including this information on migration:
The Coinage Laws were finally abolished in 1838, resulting in considerable effects on the Smelters who sought to maintain their control by any means against depression in the Cornish mining industry, plus increasing competition from abroad. The late 1830s into the 1840s was the key period of migration of Cornish mining families, not just to other mining centres in the UK but to Cuba, Australia and Tasmania. Advertisements were everywhere in Cornish newspapers by 1839 advertising mining positions in the New World. Emigrant ships rapidly started to sail from Cornish ports such as Penzance, St Ives, Hayle, Padstow and Fowey, many of which were head to Quebec and New York in North America
Shorter BBC article about the history of tin mining
Cornish Mines and Mining History in Cornwall @ cornwall-calling.co.uk