The Light Among Us: Historical fiction inspired by the life of Penzance woman Elizabeth Carne

The Light Among Us

The life of Penzance luminary Elizabeth Carne as told by American author Jill George

Elizabeth Carne (1817–1873) was a woman of many talents: author, geologist, mineral and shell collector, philosopher, philanthropist, even banker. Born in Phillack, near Hayle, to a wealthy and influential family of mining agents, merchants and bankers, she moved in distinguished circles: her friends included Quaker sisters Anna Maria and Caroline Fox of Falmouth's shipping and mining family. With them, she became an early member of the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society, and was also the first woman to be elected a member of the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall.

And yet, while so many of Cornwall’s male figures – Sir Humphry Davy, Richard Trevithick, Richard Lander – are commemorated in stone, very little is heard about Elizabeth Carne. American academic and author Jill George intends to change that with her latest novel: The Light Among Us is part biography, part love story; the profile of a brilliant woman with a quest to create a more unified and prosperous society.

Launched in July at Elizabeth’s former home, Chapel House in Penzance, the novel sees Elizabeth torn between her role as an heiress and her love for Henry, a man from the lower order. As a woman without a college education, she struggles to gain credibility in her father’s banks as she tried to maintain her family’s long legacy of wealth and philanthropy. Amid murder, smuggling, famine and restrictive social norms, Elizabeth fights not only for her love, but also for the rights of local miners in the face of a failing industry.

Jill lives in Pittsburgh, and is an industrial psychologist whose written work includes several books and articles on leadership in engaging work cultures. She has travelled the world and met thousands of leaders, using her findings to create deep and intriguing characters in her fiction, which draws equally upon her fascination with the Victorian era.

The Light Among Us grew out of lockdown. “I had three teenagers at home and was trying to home school being principal, nurse, janitor, counsellor and teacher all in one - it was completely overwhelming,” she recalls. “As a tonic for what felt like a world crashing all around me, I spent time researching the geography of one of my favorite places: Cornwall.

“I came across a photo of Elizabeth Carne, and found that very little was written about the whole of who she was. She was listed by many websites list as a woman who inherited a box of rocks, and yet she was incredibly bright, an author, a scientist! I decided her story needed to be told.”

Jill came across an online article about Elizabeth by Melissa Hardie of the Hypatia Trust in Penzance. “I peppered her with questions. When she told me she herself lived on Elizabeth’s street, in a building that used to be a bank, and that Elizabeth’s own house was a B&B, my head exploded.”

Chapel House would provide the perfect accommodation when Jill visited Penzance to check the finer details of her setting in the company of historian John Dirring, a specialist in Victorian-era banking who would become a key collaborator.

“I was in history heaven,” says Jill. "We visited all the sites I had drafted in the book to make sure we described them accurately and their distances from each other. We went in St Mary’s church and its Methodist counterpart - everywhere we could think that Elizabeth would go. We walked through thick mud and bramble to see Boscawen-Un, the standing stones she owned and took care of near St Buryan.”

As well as discussing Boscawen Un with archaeologists, Jill and John corresponded with Victorian shipping experts, read numerous books on women in Victorian Cornwall, contacted and visited most of Cornwall’s libraries and worked with Exeter University and the Royal Geological Society of Cornwall. “We had at least eight Ph.Ds working with us on this novel. That is why I say history is a team sport - no one person has all the answers.”

Much of the content is drawn from recorded fact. Elizabeth’s father, Joseph, was the director of the Cornish Copper Company, and the cellars of their home were fitted out as laboratories for exploring the smelting processes of copper and tin and the constituents of minerals and rocks - the young Humphry Davy visited for experience of a scientific environment. Later, Elizabeth would inherit her father's partnership in the Penzance Bank, and used her wealth to build several schools in Penzance and a museum for the mineral collection she had amassed with her father.

More hazy is the existence of a suitor such as Henry. Elizabeth never married, but for Jill, Henry is more than just one man. “The clergyman at her funeral stressed that she was loved by everyone and many,” Jill explains. “To me, someone with her goodness must have been admired and adored by anyone who really knew her, as so many did from her generous service and philanthropic deeds. So I created Henry as an ‘everyman’ character to represent an amalgamation of the public she adored and served, and who loved her back.”

Although The Light Among Us is a historical novel, Jill feels many of its themes resonate today. “Key things are as precious and fragile now as they were then. Freedom, for example, was not a given in the Victorian era, for individuals or country states. Women in particular had little freedom to do anything without a man, and arguably we are still fighting this battle 200 years later.”

Sadly, the summer launch was marred by the untimely death of Melissa Hardie days before the event. “We’d planned a grand party at the Women in Words bookshop, but instead had a subdued book signing, during which I reflected on how lucky I was to have found her and worked with her. I dropped off copies at shops and local libraries - everyone knew Melissa and enjoyed the stories I told about us working together on this novel, which was one of her last projects."

While many a Cornishman went to the USA during the Great Migration, Jill has yet to find evidence of any family links to Cornwall, although she does have ancestors on this side of the pond. “I do feel as if I am in the wrong country, like I belong in the UK, and am just hotelling it over here in Pittsburgh. Most of the areas where the Cornish settled are far from Pittsburgh – and, well, that is a rabbit hole for another day.” l

The Light Among Us by Jill George with John Dirring, is published by Atmosphere Press. www.jillgeorgeauthor.com