SARAH Pollock Benney (1825 – 1897) was once one of the best-known people in Truro, writes Judith Field, and has the singular honour of providing the face of Eunice, mother of St Timothy, in a stained glass window in its cathedral. This is all the more surprising because she was not from a privileged background, yet she was immortalised not only in glass but in a biography published in 1900. Why was this woman so loved?

Sarah Benney was famous locally for her strong Christian faith, decisive opinions - and quick temper. Her biography paints a vivid picture of a down-to-earth and hospitable woman, who loved bright clothes and picnics.

It also says she once knocked two men’s heads together when she found them drunk and trespassing in her yard, and she was so strict with her five sons (the only survivors of her 12 children), that none of them was allowed to stay out beyond 9pm until they were 18 or 19!

Sarah ran a successful steamboat company in Truro with her river-pilot husband, Captain Richard Benney. They had started out with only five shillings and a boat to their name, but gradually built up the business to own three passenger steamers.

It was Captain Benney who piloted the Royal Yacht up the Fal when the Prince and Princess of Wales came to lay the foundation stone of Truro Cathedral in May 1880. However, it was Sarah Benney who made sure that people had chairs to sit on when the Prince returned to open the first part of the cathedral on November 4, 1887.

In August 1884, the second Bishop of Truro, George Wilkinson, was a worried man. He had inherited the cathedral-building project from his predecessor, Edward White Benson, and although sufficient money had been raised to complete the first phase of the structure, nothing at all had been provided for the fittings.

Many people felt that too much money had been spent already, but you couldn’t open a building with nothing in it! The Bishop turned to the women of Cornwall, and 160 gathered to work out what to do.

It was Sarah Benney who stepped forward and galvanised the crowd. She said she knew “good, serviceable chairs cost four shillings and sixpence each”, and offered to collect the money needed to buy all 1,500 of them. This she achieved through offering people of all classes the opportunity to ‘adopt a chair’, personally collecting a penny a week for 54 weeks from some so that they wouldn’t be left out.

Inspired by her boldness, the rest of the women went on to raise an incredible £15,000 (£1.6m in today’s money) to furnish everything a cathedral needs.

Tickets to the opening were allocated by ballot to those who had worked to make the cathedral, so the packed congregation represented everyone, not simply the well-to-do. Among them was Sarah Benney, “brimful of happiness”. You can see why, next time you visit your cathedral!