Falmouth was where news of Trafalgar landed and Darwin stepped off the Beagle
As the nearest big harbour to the mouth of the English Channel, Falmouth was often Britain's first point of contact with the wider world. Word of Nelson's victory and death at Trafalgar arrived there in 1805, and in 1836 Charles Darwin left HMS Beagle at Falmouth to catch the mail coach home after his voyage.
The town is young by Cornish standards. Henry VIII built Pendennis Castle in 1540 to guard the Carrick Roads anchorage, strengthened against the Spanish Armada later that century, and during the Civil War it was the second-last fort to surrender to Parliament. The Killigrew family founded Falmouth itself shortly after 1613 near their Arwenack estate, and it soon eclipsed the older neighbouring town of Penryn. Both the English and Cornish names mean the mouth of the River Fal.
For more than 160 years, from 1689 to 1851, the Falmouth Packet Service carried mail between Britain and its expanding empire. By the late 18th century thirty to forty small three-masted ships were in service, and because government vessels escaped customs searches, officers and crews often grew rich on contraband. In the 1790s two Royal Navy frigate squadrons were stationed there, bringing in captured French ships and prisoners, who were held in camps near Penryn. In 1839 thieves made off with 47,600 pounds' worth of Brazilian gold dust as it arrived.
The telegraph connected the town in 1857 and the railway in 1863, turning it into a holiday destination. An early telephone line in 1899 was judged so expensive that the local paper suggested using it only for urgent business. During the Second World War Falmouth launched the 1942 St Nazaire raid and hosted American troops who embarked for D-Day from its creeks.
It remains Cornwall's largest port, alongside the National Maritime Museum Cornwall and a university campus. On 11 August 1999 the town enjoyed the longest total solar eclipse anywhere in the United Kingdom, lasting just over two minutes.
Source: Falmouth, Cornwall
