Robert Morton Nance

Robert Morton Nance (born 1873 in Cardiff of Cornish parents - died 1959) was a leading authority on the Cornish language, nautical archaeologist, and joint founder of the Old Cornwall Society.

He wrote many books and pamphlets on the Cornish language, including a Cornish dictionary, which is a standard work, and edited magazines and pamphlets about Cornwall, including Old Cornwall, the journal of the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies. Nance was also a nautical archaeologist of distinction and was an originator of the Society for Nautical Research. His insight and learning were displayed in his book Sailing-ship Models which appeared in 1924. He studied art in Britain and France and was both a painter and a skilled craftsman.

Chronology of his life

• 1898: He wrote "The Merry Ballad of the Cornish Pasty".^[1]
• 1906: He moved from Wales and settled at Nancledra near St Ives.
• 1911: He jointly founded the Society for Nautical Research.
• 1920: He, together with Henry Jenner, founded the first Old Cornwall Society at St Ives.
• 1924: The Federation of Old Cornwall Societies was established.
• 1925: The Federation established the periodical Old Cornwall.
• 1928: He jointly founded the Gorseth Kernow which was inaugurated at Boscawen-Un, where he took the bardic name Mordon ('Sea Wave').
• 1929: He published Cornish for All using the 'Unified' Middle Cornish spelling system.
• 1951 - 1955: He was President of the Royal Institution of Cornwall for 1951 - 1955.^[2]

Selected list of works

• 1912: Speight, E E; Nance, R Morton (1912-01-01). Britain's Sea Story. Henry Frowde.  ASIN B000LQ60UM
• 1923: A Glossary of Celtic Words in Cornish Dialect. Falmouth: Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society
• 1924: Sailing-ship Models: a selection from European and American collections with introductory text. London: Halton and Truscott Smith (photographs)
  • ---do.---2nd rev. ed. London; New York: Halton, 1949
  • Classic Sailing-ship Models in Photographs. Reprinted Dover Publications, Mineola, NY, 2000 ISBN 0-486-41249-0
• 1925- : Old Cornwall, as editor and contributor.
  • Articles in Old Cornwall, including "The Cornish Language in the Seventeenth Century", in: Old Cornwall; vol. VI, no. 1.
• 1955: Cornish-English Dictionary. Federation of Old Cornwall Societies ISBN 0-902660-05-5
• 1956: The Cledry Plays: drolls of Old Cornwall for village acting and home reading. Federation of Old Cornwall Societies B0000CJH1W^{[clarification needed]}
• 1961: Cornish for All: a guide to Unified Cornish. Federation of Old Cornwall Societies. B0000CKWG1^{[clarification needed]}
• [n.d.]: A Guide to Cornish Place-names; with a list of the words contained in them. Federation of Old Cornwall Societies. (Three editions, before 1971.)

See also

• Richard Gendall
• Ken George
• Henry Jenner
• Dolly Pentreath
• Nicholas Williams

References

1. ^ Hall, Stephen (2001) The Cornish Pasty. Nettlecombe: Agre Books ISBN 0 9538000 4 0
2. ^ Brian Murdoch, "Nance, Robert Morton (1873-1959)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 15 Nov 2007

• Obituary in The Times, May 28, 1959

External links

• What we stand for — Old Cornwall 1:1, April 1925
• Setting Cornwall on its Feet: Robert Morton Nance 1873-1959
• Robert Morton Nance (Mordon) at the website of Gorseth Kernow

Persondata
Name	Nance, Robert Morton
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1873
Place of birth
Date of death	1959
Place of death