Keskows:Ralph St Vincent Allin-Collins

English translation for Celtic Editathon

Ralph Saint Vincent Allin-Collins (1878 - 11 April 1948) was a Cornishman and one of the leaders of the Cornish Revival.

He was born as Ralph St Vincent Allin in 1878 in Lewisham, London to John Henry Allin, a fuller from Cornwall, and Anna Maria Richmond, the daughter of a brewer. When he was a year old, the family moved to a village near Boulogne, France. He said that he didn’t speak English until he was twelve years old, but that he learned French there.

In the 1911 census he was listed as a professional translator, living near Regent Street. He married Marie Eulalie Mommens (1884-1951) in September 1915 in London. In the 1920s he started learning Celtic languages. He knew Irish and some Breton. He claimed that he heard the Cornish language spoken by his family when he was young (although his father was from Boyton in North Cornwall), and that he learnt the traditional rhyme 'This little piggy' in Cornish from an old man, Martin Uren (1813-1898), in Lanner. In any case he taught Cornish to a class in London. Allin-Collinsinsisted on the spoken language in his class, proving that it was possible through his own example.

In 1927 he published 'A Cornish Grammar' . Unfortunately, his book was criticised because of a lack of proofreading and mistakes contained in it. He wrote a number of short stories for newspapers such as the St Ives Times, Bodmin Guardian and Western Weekly News, and a number of short stories by him were included into in the book 'An Den ha'y Dheu Wreg' edited by Robert Morton Nance. He was made a bard of the Gorsedh of Brittany on 10 September 1928 with the bardic name Lokmaria Ker, and then in 1933 made a bard of the Cornish Gorsedh through examination with the bardic name Halwyn.

More publications are held by the National Library of Wales, dated 1928, such as 'Clappiansow an Treghas Treus' and 'Davydd Trewortha ('An improbable tale of love and war')' . Halwyn would write letters to other bards using their bardic names such as 'Bras y Golon' (William Benjamin Tregoning Hooper), even before they were accepted into the Gorsedh.

Allin-Collins died at Tooting Bec Hospital on 11 April 1948. Brwynog (keskows) 11:49, 9 Metheven 2022 (UTC)