PENRYN, a market town and port, and municipal borough of Cornwall, England, 2 M. N.W. of Falmouth, on a branch of the G.W. railway. Pop. (1931) 3,414. Penryn owed its devel opment to the fostering care of the bishops of Exeter within whose demesne lands it stood. These lands appear in Domesday Book under the name of Trelivel. In 1230 Bishop Briwere granted to his burgesses of Penryn that they should hold their burgages freely at a yearly rent of 12d. by the acre for all service. Bishop Walter de Stapeldon secured a market on Thursdays and a fair at the Feast of St. Thomas. The return to the bishop in 1307 was £7, 13s. 21d. from the borough and L26, 7s. 5d. from the forum. In 1311 Bishop Stapeldon procured a three days' fair at the Feast of St. Vitalis. Philip and Mary gave the parliamen tary franchise to the burgesses in 1553. James I. granted and renewed the charter of incorporation, providing a mayor, I I alder men and 12 councillors, markets on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and fairs on May 1, July 7 and Dec. 21. The charter having been surrendered, James II. by a new charter inter alia confined the parliamentary franchise to members of the corporation. This proviso however was soon disregarded, the franchise being freely exercised by all the inhabitants paying scot and lot. An attempt
to deprive the borough of its members, owing to corrupt prac tices, was defeated by the House of Lords in 1827. The act of 1832 extended the franchise to Falmouth in spite of the rivalry existing between the two boroughs. In 1885 the united borough was deprived of one of its members. Penryn and Falmouth are now in one of the county parliamentary divisions of Cornwall. The corporation of Penryn was remodelled in 1835, the aldermen being reduced to four.
Its foreign trade, dating from the 14th century, is consid erable. The extra-parochial collegiate church of Glasney, founded by Bishop Bronescombe in 1265, had a revenue at the time of its suppression under the act of 1545 of £221, I 8S. 4d. The town lies at the head of the estuary of the Penryn river, which opens from the main estuary of the Fal at Falmouth. Granite, which is extensively quarried in the neighbourhood, is dressed and polished at Penryn, and there are also chemical and bone manure works, engineering, iron and gunpowder works, timber-yards, brewing, tanning and paper-making. The harbour dries at low tide, but at high tide has 13 ft. of water.