Many of the male members of the Gwinear branch of the Lanyon family were surgeons. Tobias Lanyon 1619-1698 was a surgeon and apothecary and many of his descendants followed him into the profession.
Tobias Lanyon 1763-1844
Tobias Lanyon was baptised at Gwinear in 1763. By 1780 he was apprenticed to James Keigwin, surgeon at Camborne.
In 1801 he married Elizabeth Budge by licence at Camborne. Tobias and Elizabeth had six children.
- Edward 1802-1861 married Charlotte Grace Reynolds
- Mary Anne 1803-1898 (married cousin Richard Lanyon)
- Elizabeth 1804-1856 (married cousin James Lanyon)
- Richard 1808-1853 married Frances Philippa Reynolds
- William 1811-1876 he was a mine agent who never married
- Ellen 1812-1813 died in infancy
Tobias and Elizabeth’s daughters Mary Anne and Elizabeth married Tobias’ cousins Richard and James Lanyon (see post ‘Cousins’). Their sons Edward and Richard married two sisters, Charlotte Grace and Frances Philippa Reynolds. They were the daughters of William Reynolds and Philippa Tellam.
Richard Lanyon 1808-1853
Richard was a surgeon and was awarded an MRCS in 1832. He married Frances Elizabeth Reynolds in Jul 1844. They didn’t have any children.
Richard died in 1853 aged 45. He had been suffering from heart disease for some years and dropsy for three weeks. The Royal Cornwall Gazette (18 Nov 1853) described him as “one of the faculty, his loss will be greatly deplored by all who knew him; and as a kind benefactor he will be greatly lamented by the industrious and deserving of all the neighbourhood”.
He left a will and his estate was valued at less than £3000.
Beneficiaries of his will:
- To my dearest wife – furniture, linen, china, jewels, books, pictures, wines, spirits, carriages, harnesses etc.
- To James Lanyon of Camborne, mine agent, and to Elizabeth his wife all my one fifth part of my late father’s leasehold property upon trust, the profit for the sole use of their children Ellen and Henry
- Residue to my dear wife and nephew Rodolphus Edward Lanyon son of my brother Edward.
- My wife to control property during minority of Rodolphus Edward Lanyon
- My wife to receive amount or share of my medical practice
- To Fanny and William Lanyon children of my said brother Edward, £100 each and to my godson Frederick, son of my sister Mary Anne, the sum of £100
- To my brother William Lanyon £50. If my wife die without issue residue to Rodolphus Edward Lanyon my nephew.
- My wife to continue on farm for her own use.
The will was signed on 15 Oct and he died less than a month later on 12 Nov. Frances, his wife, died without issue in 1858 and was remembered in the Royal Cornwall Gazette “On Sunday last, relict of the late Richard Lanyon Esq. Her loss will be deeply felt by a large circle of sorrowing relatives and friends, as well as by the poor of the town and neighbourhood to whom she was a liberal benefactor.”
Edward 1802-1861
Edward was the eldest son of Tobias and Elizabeth and like his brother Richard he was a surgeon. He was awarded his MRCS in 1824. He worked as a surgeon at Fore Street in Camborne.
In 1836 he married Charlotte Grace Reynolds the younger sister of Frances Philippa Reynolds at Illogan. They had five children:
- Richard 1836-1850 – JVM lists him as the eldest son but no trace of a birth or death (he doesn’t appear on the tree above)
- Francis Philippa Austen 1837-1865 married Joseph Mumford Percival, a surgeon, she died age 28 and buried with her brother William at Chichester.
- Rodolphus Edward 1840-1905 married Agnes Allen
- KN 1841-bef. 1851 – sadly we don’t know the name of this child, she was mentioned as KN on the 1841 census and no further trace
- William Reynolds 1841-1866 died age 25 of TB – He married Eliza Ellen Brewer, no issue. From an article (with many mistakes) by P Lanyon-Orgill 1957. “William Lanyon was the author of a large number of sentimental poems, his first appearing in the Helston Grammar-School Magazine Vol 1, pt1, April 1852. This magazine is devoted almost entirely to contributions with a classical tendency…. the sole contribution being an unsigned poem entitled ‘Arthur of Bretagne’. In the copy preserved in the British Museum this piece has the signature ‘W. Lanyon’ added in the headmaster’s hand and this example of the family’s poetical talents may perhaps be rescued from obscurity. William subsequently produced a whole volume of poems, entitled ‘My Old Carpet Bag’ and its contents’ by ‘An Old Traveller’ printed in 1873, the contents of which are uniformly bad and are not even up to the standards of his school boy effort.’)”
Of their five children only Rodolphus married and had children.
Edward died in 1861 and was buried at Camborne. His wife erected a beautiful memorial window in his memory in Camborne Church.
West Window of Inner South Aisle: Christ and the impotent man at the Pool of Bethesda, erected in 1864 in memory of Edward Lanyon (died 1861). Makes : Alexander Gibbs
One wonders why she chose to depict that particular bible story and what the other parishioners thought!!
The Lanyons 