The Cornish Overseas

The story of the migration of the Cornish people throughout the world is an epic, told here by one of the world’s leading scholars of the movement of Cornish people. Accessible narrative includes the US, Canada, Australia, and S Africa. Fully revised and updated with almost two decades of additional research undertaken by historians worldwide.

In this fully revised and up-dated edition of The Cornish Overseas, Philip Payton draws upon almost two decades of additional research undertaken by historians the world over since the first paperback version of this book was published in 2005. Now published by University of Exeter Press, this edition of Philip Payton’s classic history of Cornwall’s ‘great emigration’ takes account of numerous new sources to present a comprehensive, definitive picture of the Cornish diaspora. The Cornish Overseas begins by identifying some of the classic themes of Cornish emigration history, including Cornwall’s ’emigration culture’ and ’emigration trade’, and goes on to sketch early Cornish settlement in North America and Australia. The book then examines in detail the upsurge in Cornish emigration after 1815, showing how Cornwall became swiftly one of the great emigration regions of Europe. Discoveries of silver, copper and gold drew Cornish miners to Latin America, while Cornish agriculturalists were attracted to the United States and Canada. The discoveries of copper in South Australia and in Michigan during the 1840s offered new destinations for the emigrant Cornish, as did the Californian gold rush in 1849 and the Victorian gold rush in Australia in 1851. The crash of copper-mining in Cornwall in 1866 sped further waves of emigrants to countries as disparate as New Zealand and South Africa. In each of these places the Cornish remained distinctive as ‘Cousin Jacks’ and ‘Cousin Jennys’, establishing their own communities and making important contributions to the social, political and economic development of the new worlds. By 1914, however, Cornwall was no longer the international centre of mining expertise, the mantle having passed to America, Australia and South Africa, and Cornish emigration had dwindled as a result. Nonetheless, the Cornish at home and abroad remained aware of their global transnational identity, an identity that has been revitalised in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

• By (author) Philip Payton

"I made very frequent use of The Cornish Overseas while writing my last monograph. It is a fine piece of scholarship, deeply researched, carefully arranged and beautifully presented... There has been a rapid growth of interest in histories of migration, transnational histories, the history of skilled labour, expatriate British communities, and global history. Payton's work lies at the intersection of all these and deserves a wide readership.Payton is the ultimate collector of Cornish data... Payton's intimate knowledge of mining lore and technology make him an authoritative guide. He shows the comprehensive transmission of Cornish culture, folkways, language and mining methods to the South Australian tabula rasa in the 1840s.Payton's fine work...provides a professional, heavily documented narrative of the long exodus from Cornwall and he invests it with spirit and humour... The Cornish Overseas is a splendidly panoramic survey of the global Cornish, and an important addition to emigration and mining history.The most comprehensive telling of Cornwall's story as one of the great migration regions of Europe... The new materials in the volume, especially on Australia, and updated interpretations, especially pertaining to the mindsets of migrants, proved central to my work.A huge undertaking, distilling wide-ranging research on a complex subject into an engaging and very readable volume packed with detail.A magisterial survey of the creation during the nineteenth century of the Cornish diaspora, the experiences of the Cornish who emigrated, and the emergence in many different parts of the world of communities based upon mining which cherished their distinctive Cornish identity.It is authoritative, based on decades of research and familiarity with its subject matter. An excellent reference work, meticulously referenced and indexed. I can find no fault with it.The most important book of its kind in half a century... A spectacular and comprehensive scope.[...] It is a salute to Cornwall and the Cornish. It must take a premier place in breadth of research, in quality of presentation, and in the sheer magnetism and warmth of its readability."
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