THIS week’s selection of extracts from The Commercial, Shipping & General Advertiser, The Penryn & Falmouth Advertiser and The Borough Times, supplied by Penryn Museum.

From January 1931:

Presiding at the annual meeting of the Royal Cornwall Home for Destitute Girls at Falmouth on Monday, Lord St Levan appealed for greater support for the institution from other parts of Cornwall. It was a Royal Cornwall Home, he said, and cared for destitute girls from outside of Falmouth and district.

From March 1931:

Reference to the proposed Falmouth Docks extension scheme was made at the meeting of Falmouth Harbour Board. The scheme will probably be started shortly, and it is understood that about a million tons of material will have to be dredged from the harbour and that the scheme will take two or three years to complete.

From 1965:

The biggest police hunt ever known in Cornwall was centred on the Falmouth-Penryn area during the weekend when three escaped convicts were known to be in the area. The men, who escaped from Blundstone top security prison in Suffolk last month, booked in at the Palm Court Hotel, Melvill Road, Falmouth, last Tuesday. They were in a blue Zephyr car DLF 580 C hired in London. They appeared to be ordinary visitors. On Saturday an alarm was raised, and there was a police chase through the streets of Falmouth after the car failed to stop when a policeman signalled to it. The car was later found abandoned in Mayfield Road, Falmouth, after it had collided with a furniture van and a parked car.

A record 1,500 people will plod the road between Falmouth and Penzance next Saturday night and Sunday morning. The fourth 50-mile walk organised by Falmouth area youth organiser, Major Bill Smith, has brought and almost overwhelming response. In March, 1963, after reading about President Kennedy’s challenge to American youth to walk 50 miles, Major Smith issued a similar challenge to the young people in the Falmouth-Penryn area.

The headmaster of Falmouth Grammar School, Mr D H Tribe, had not published the General Certificate of Education examination results in the Press because the practice encouraged comparison of failures and achievements, and invidious and frequently uncharitable exercise. The belief was mentioned in Mr Tribe’s first annual report at the school’s speech day which was held in the Central Methodist Church. He added that in academic terms it had been an averagely good year.