Penzance and pirates, they go together like fish, tin and copper don't they? Been togather since time immemorial haven't they so what's the big deal with 31st December 1879?

It's pantomime season in Penzance, at the Pavilion a chap calling himself Lanyon Cromlech is in charge of publicity.....

Tuesday 20th December 1870 in St John's Hall: Handel's Messiah under the baton of the estimable Mr J. H. Nunn with soloists of national fame including the celebrated James Maybrick.

Rinking: it’s already sweeping the nation, and now it can sweep Penzance.The old West of England Knitting Company in New Street has been transformed into “the People’s Palace”.

29th November 1813, the last time a bull was baited at Madron Feast.....

There a new cinema in Penzance and I predict it will be become on of the longest lived cinemas in the country!

Tonight Oscar Wilde is going to speak on the subject of America, about which he will later say that, "America has never quite forgiven Europe for having been discovered somewhat earlier in history than itself". 

Thirty contestants are participating in a round-Penwith race which will end at Penzance Pavilion. Crowds have gathered, medals have been truck and maintenance completed. Newlyn has never seen the like! 

World Championship Heavyweight Boxing comes to Penzance, two years after the event on Coney Island but now's your chance to see the Cornish Blacksmith and World Champion Bob Fitzsimmons of Helston face challenger James J. Jefferies of California....

Farron, Greet and Grattan, not a new firm of solicitors but a visiting company of players come to entertain Penzance as the nights draw in. 

It's Pirates versus Wanderers in the big match on Moday night and an opportunity to see the magic Jennings strut his stuff, AND LOSE and the pirates cut their opponents down to size.

Harry and Fred Poole have brought their Myriorama to town. The craze of the new century – moving pictures! This is the “Largest, latest and most beautifully designed machine for the projection of Animated Photography”

Phantom photographers snap bathing beauties in Penzance conspiracy scare: read all about it!

Cornwall's always had a bit of a thing about royalty, particularly since that dreadful business back in 1649, but in 1933 the people of Penzance really go for it: it's a gloomy time, nationwide depression and mining virtually ended in the Duchy, so let's have Two Queens............

The 18th to the 22 August 1887 saw numerous sporting events in west Cornwall and beyond. But star attraction was the Trewellard v Penzance cricket match..............

Admit it, you thought Nadia Comăneci was the first child sports star! Nadia was 14 when she hit the headlines but today we bring you Phyllis Bottrell, the 13 year old swmming prodigy from Penzance.......

There’s a mighty new cinema in town, on the site of the old Horse and Jockey – closed since way back, before the Great War.

Penzance's first talkie - The Doctor's Secret - read Toestrap of the Cornishman's of the gripping story of........well, read on to find out....

As night fell, youths gathered, “vainly endeavouring to assume a very careless air” but with “an anxious manner” and “mysterious protuberances” beneath their coats......

Saturday afternoon, and the season’s begun. Down at the Jubilee Pool, in a match between the two county champion teams, we’ve had the better of Devonport. The score..........

after six weeks of money hunting we are informed at a meeting of the Committee that only sixty pounds have been raised and that several leading hotel keepers …….. have, with extreme munificence, contributed the extraordinarily large sum of ten shillings.....

Penzance has always been a good venue, what with the excellent trains and all the West Penwith farmers. The 1912 attendance of 21,454 hasn’t been bettered by any show since.....

....at Trereiffe they were practically neck and neck, Ford just leading. Up Toltuft hill Jasper, who was the strongest in this work, passed Ford, but the latter regained the lead when the downhill work started again, and a desperate finish resulted. 

Alderman Thomas has masterminded the whole enterprise. They’ve gone for luxury and comfort.

George V’s silver jubilee is the big event of May 1935, and the opening of the already-floodlit Pool three weeks later is to be the central part of Penzance’s celebrations...

Greeting to Buffalo Bill: From the far Wild West to the Western Wilds

Empire Day 1916 - there is to be a ceremony in Penzance but, at the insistence of Richard Foster Bolitho, it will be unpublicised and winessed only be a few passers-by......

What a scene the field presented! Immense crowds everywhere; and all pleased, all delighted. A lovely day, a splendid ceremony……..”

On Tuesday 30^th March 1875 the Penzance Choral Society, assisted by the 32-strong orchestral band and by bro. Rd. White at the organ, gave a performance of Mendelssohn's oratorio Elijah, which the Royal Cornwall Gazette considered to be the best amateur rendering of this piece to have taken place in Penzance.......................

The Ritz in Penzance has a new film starting tonight and showing over the weekend: Moira Shearer in The Man Who Loved Redheads. One thing you can say for that – it won’t be in black and white. The advert actually says “rich colour” just in case anyone was wondering................

Midnight has fallen, bringing in Saturday morning, the 23^rd of March 1968. But 500 Penzance and district youngsters have had a great night out, and (leaving aside any possibility of illicit substances having been consumed) are probably just too excited to sleep.

Poldark lives…. And although some may contend that W S Graham, who started it all when he published Jeremy Poldark in 1945, might be turning in his grave, West Cornwall is alive with excitement.

...

the public were invited to help scrape and paint the undersides of three old luggers or to set up their easels on the Quay and paint....

Tail-piping or pralling dogs in the neighbourhood of Penzance ranked as an amusement, next to bull baiting, with the lower orders of society....

Penzance Choral Society is one of the country's oldest mixed voice choral societies, and almost certainly its most westerly one..........

Penzance, Saturday morning, 9th January 1937. What’s on at the pictures, darling? Shall we look and see?