John Trevanion Purnell Bettesworth-Trevanion (born Bettesworth; 1780 – 8 March 1840) was a Cornish politician. He rebuilt Caerhays as a Gothic-style castle.
Early years
Bettesworth was born in St Michael Caerhays, Cornwall, England in 1780. He was the first son of John Bettesworth (died 1789)[1] of Caerhays, who in 1784 unsuccessfully contested a seat in Parliament for Tregony, and Frances Elinor Tomkins (died 1821). His siblings included George, Henry, Frances, and Georgiana.[2] His paternal grandparents were John Bettesworth, LLD, Dean of Arches,[3] and Frances Trevannion.
Bettesworth took the additional name of Trevanion by royal licence on 18 December 1801 when he inherited the Caerhays estate. Three days later, he married Charlotte Hosier (died 1810; age 27) by whom he had four sons including, John Charles Trevanion Bettesworth, Henry Trevanion Bettesworth (d. 1855), George Bettesworth (RN), and Frederick William Trevanion Bettesworth (vicar of Whitby), and one daughter, Charlotte Agnes (died 1809).[7] His second son Henry Trevanion Bettesworth (1804–1855) married 4 February 1826[8] his distant cousin[9] Georgiana Augusta Leigh (1808–1866), a daughter of Augusta Leigh (elder half-sister of Lord Byron) but in 1829 ran off with his sister-in-law Medora)[10] to the Continent, where he eventually separated from her and died in 1855. In 1830, he married secondly Susannah (c. 1800 - 1886), daughter of the Englishreformistpolitician, Sir Francis Burdett, by whom he had a daughter.[5]
Bettesworth-Trevanion rebuilt Caerhays as a Gothic-style castle using the design of the Anglo-Welsh architect John Nash.[4] Construction began in 1807 and was completed in 1810. As a consequence of his extravagance, Bettesworth-Trevanion fell heavily into debt, fleeing to Paris,[11] forced to live abroad.[4]
He is a recurring character in the later Poldark novels by Winston Graham. The books stress both the magnificence of Caerhays and the ruinous cost to Trevanion of the rebuilding: a well-informed neighbour remarks that "the madman's nigh on bankrupt".
Bella Poldark, the final novel in the Poldark sequence, details his flight abroad.
^[1]. Georgiana Leigh was a daughter of George Leigh (son of Frances Byron) and Hon Augusta Byron (dau of John Byron); both Byron grandparents (siblings) were children of Sophia Trevanion who married Admiral Hon John Byron. Sophia Trevanion, the great-grandmother, was a daughter of John Trevanion of Caerhayes. The relationship was probably not very close, making them third cousins or less.
