Robert Morton Nance

Robert Morton Nance (1873–1959) was a British writer and leading authority on the Cornish language, a nautical archaeologist, and joint founder of the Old Cornwall Society.

Nance 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.

Work with the Cornish language My own interest in Cornish came, I expect, from my father's comparison of Cornish names with Welsh, of which he knew a little, having had at least enough interest in it to get a dictionary and grammar.

Nance began studying the Cornish language in 1904 from Henry Jenner's A Handbook of the Cornish language, although he would later steer the language revival towards mediaeval Cornish.

...even the Handbook did not get me to the stage of attempting to write or speak the language, as the projected book of exercises might have done had it been printed. If I could puzzle out such things in Cornish as were printed in a Penzance newspaper that seemed enough.

In 1909, Nance and Jenner met in Falmouth while the former was researching for the book A Glossary of Cornish Sea Words (published only after his death as a memorial volume in 1959). They became friends and spent the next decade researching Cornish and collecting tidbits of traditional Cornish. These were published in a series of papers which were read both to the Royal Institution of Cornwall and the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society. During this time, he worked to improve modern Cornish and publish new editions in 1952 and 1955 of his two dictionaries. In 1954, records were produced of Nance reading the story Jowan Chy an Hor, as well as Boorde's Colloquies and the Lord's Prayer. Before his death in 1959, he remarked: "One generation has set Cornish on its feet. It is now for another to make it walk."

Personal life

Nance was born in Cardiff to Cornish parents. His father was from Padstow. Nance spent most of his youth living in Penarth and studied art in Cardiff and Hertfordshire. In 1906, Nance moved from Wales and settled at Nancledra near St Ives, Cornwall from where he jointly founded the Society for Nautical Research in 1911. In 1959, he died and was buried at St Senara's Church, Zennor after taking ill in the autumn of 1957.

Selected list of works 1912: 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 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. 1932: An Balores, a play in Unified Cornish 1934: English-Cornish Dictionary, with A. S. D. Smith 1938: Cornish-English Dictionary. Federation of Old Cornwall Societies 1961: Cornish for All: a guide to Unified Cornish. Federation of Old Cornwall Societies. B0000CKWG1 [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.)