The grave of six‑year‑old Cyril Edwards stands on the upper slope of Altarnun churchyard, a small granite cross marking a short life ended on 9 October 1913. The inscription records that he died at East Moor Gate, a location just south of the village where the enclosed farmland gives way to the rougher ground of Bodmin Moor. The place is still recognisable today: a transition point between settlement and open moorland, exposed to the weather and remote from the clustered houses of the parish.
Further research shows that Cyril was not a local child by birth. He was born in London and, by the time of the 1911 census, was living as a boarder with the Williams family at Clitters, Lewannick. The household consisted of John Williams, a farm labourer born in North Hill; his wife Bessie, originally from Altarnun; and their son William, then still at school. Cyril, aged four, appears in the census as part of this household, suggesting that he had been placed in their care some time before his death.
By 1921, John and Bessie Williams were living at East Moor Gate itself, both aged fifty, with John employed as a quarryman working road stone for Mr W. Olicer at Talpthewin Quarry. Their son William is no longer listed in the household by that date. Although this census comes after Cyril’s death, it confirms that the Williams family — with whom Cyril had been living — were directly associated with East Moor Gate. This connection may explain why Cyril was at that location when he died, even though the precise circumstances remain unrecorded.
Cyril’s death certificate gives the cause as poliomyelitis, certified by Charles H. Gibson M.D. At the time, polio was one of the most feared childhood diseases: a highly infectious viral illness that invades the nervous system and can cause sudden, irreversible paralysis. It predominantly affected children under the age of five, and in the early twentieth century there was neither cure nor effective treatment.
Why Cyril died at East Moor Gate rather than at home is not stated. The certificate offers no explanation, and the parish registers add nothing further. It may have been a seizure, a collapse while being carried or moved, or simply the point at which the illness finally overwhelmed him. Whatever the circumstances, the location is precise enough to suggest that his final hours were witnessed and remembered, even if the details have not survived.
Polio remained a threat in Britain for decades after Cyril’s death, with periodic outbreaks well into the mid‑twentieth century. Only the development of effective vaccines in the 1950s and 1960s finally brought the disease under control. Cyril’s grave therefore stands as a reminder of a time when such losses were neither rare nor preventable, and when families in rural parishes like Altarnun lived with the constant risk of sudden childhood illness.
The small cross on the hillside is typical of early twentieth‑century memorials in the parish: plain, factual and without embellishment. It records only the essentials — name, date and age — yet the circumstances behind those few words evoke a wider story of disease, isolation and the limits of medical care on the edge of Bodmin Moor in 1913.
With thanks to Margaret Galbraith for locating the death certificate and helping to clarify the circumstances behind this grave, which sits high above St Nonna’s church looking back over the village.
