margaret steuart ‘peggy’ pollard

 Arts, Environment, Cornish Language 

 1903 - 1996  

Suggested by Davyth Fear  

Davyth writes, “Peggy Pollard became an early language bard of the Gorsedh in 1938, winning the first three literary competitions with classic pastiches of miracle plays.  

She was the first woman to get a 1st class honours in Oriental languages at Cambridge and was a renowned Sanskrit scholar. She founded Ferguson’s Gang in the 1930s, an anonymous group of people who raised much money for the National Trust which was used to buy much of the Cornish coastline including near Lands End. Peggy was a fluent Cornish speaker, writing some of the classics of the Revivals literature.
She was a talented harpist and played at Gorsedh ceremonies. She raised the money to build a Catholic chapel in Truro and received the Benemerenti prize from the Pope himself.  

I am a language bard myself, and she set the standard for Cornish language writing. She was a polymath and had so many different interests, yet was humble and generous in spirit.”  

From Wikipedia,
“Peggy lived in Cornwall most of her life, marrying a Cornishman Captain Frank Pollard, an authority on Cornish history. She wrote in Cornish, including a book entitled Cornwall. 
She remained an active poet and translator throughout her long life. Having given away much of her inherited wealth after her husband's death in 1968, she lived in a  one-up-one-down, an old tin miner's cottage on Richmond Hill, Truro.  She was a romantic figure, dressed in a long skirt with a scarf wrapped around her head. She died at the age of 93 on 13 November 1996 at Truro.