Gilbert Doble

Gilbert Hunter Doble (26 November 1880 – 15 April 1945) was an Anglican priest and Cornish historian and hagiographer.

G. H. Doble was born in Penzance, Cornwall, on 26 November 1880. His father, John Medley Doble, shared his enthusiasm for archaeology and local studies with his sons. He was a scholar of Exeter College, Oxford, and graduated in modern history in 1903. He attended Ely Theological College.

He was ordained in 1907 and served a long series of incumbents, in various parts of England and Cornwall as assistant curate. His Anglo-Catholic leanings were a bar to his preferment in the Church of England. In 1924, when he spoke publicly on "Re-catholicising Cornwall", a proffered appointment was withdrawn. However, in Autumn 1919 he was appointed curate of the parish of Redruth in Cornwall and served there until 1925. He then served for almost twenty years as the Vicar of Wendron, also in Cornwall.

In 1935, he was appointed an honorary canon of Truro Cathedral. During his parochial ministry, he was a great friend of children, especially those deprived of proper care by familial poverty or the workhouse.

In between ministering to the needs of his parishioners, Canon Doble pursued a lifelong study of sub-Roman Celtic Britain and Brittany, in which he gained a European-wide reputation. He was especially interested in the medieval vitae or 'lives', and additional legends, related to the early Christian holy men and women (or 'saints') of Cornwall, Wales and of Brittany. The fruit of his research was published between 1923 and 1945 in a collection of forty-eight booklets known as the "Cornish Saints Series". The later issues (from 1928) include historical commentaries by Charles Henderson. They have since been republished in book-form but without the Henderson commentaries: this edition was edited by Donald Attwater and appeared in 5 volumes published by the Dean and Chapter of Truro, 1960–1970. Until Orme's Saints of Cornwall was published in 2000, they were the most thorough, scholarly and reliable works available on the subject.

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