Overview
The story of the migration of the Cornish people throughout the world is an epic. First and foremost a maritime land, with links to the greater world beyond these islands stretching back into prehistoric times, Cornwall has experienced waves of emigration throughout its long history. The Cornish Overseas details the global impact of the most recent of these waves - the 'Great Emigration' that lasted for a little more than a century from 1815 until the First World War and after. Cornish historians have long recognised the international significance of this wholesale scattering of the so-called Cousin Jacks and Jennies, but have yet to fully understand the consequences of this phenomenon. Including much new research undertaken in recent years, Philip Payton illustrates the effects on each region of the incursion of the Cornish diaspora. Philip Payton is one of the world's leading scholars of the movement of Cornish people over time, both within the United Kingdom and to the major mining and agricultural districts of the world. His accessible narrative covers the United States, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, continental South America and elsewhere. The story of the migration of the Cornish people throughout the world is an epic. Philip Payton is one of the world's leading scholars of the movement of Cornish people over time, both within the United Kingdom and to the major mining and agricultural districts of the world. His accessible narrative covers the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, continental South America and elsewhere, and includes much new research undertaken in recent years. From the Introduction: Cornwall is one the great emigration regions of Europe. First and foremost a maritime land, with links to a greater world beyond these islands stretching back even into prehistoric times, Cornwall has experienced at least two great waves of emigration in its long history. The first is shrouded in mystery, that still unexplained Dark Age exodus from south-western Britain which - somewhere between the 4th and 6th centuries AD - took hundreds, possibly thousands of settlers to the Armorican peninsula, present-day Brittany. Although its origins are obscure, the result of this emigration are everywhere apparent - not only in the common placenames and saints' dedications that are evidence of the long historical entwinement of Cornwall and Brittany but in the expressions of present-day pan-Celtic sentiment which range from the twinning of Cornish and Breton towns to the formal regional accord between Cornwall County Council and the Departement of Finistere. The second wave of mass Cornish emigration, that wholesale scattering of the so-called Cousin Jacks and Jennies known to modern scholars as the 'Great Emigration', is a far more recent phenomenon - running for little more than a century from 1815 until the First World War and after - but it has been truly global in its impact and may have consequences which even now are not fully played-out, let alone fully understood. Cornish historians have long recognised the international significance of the Great Emigration. A.L. Rowse considered that 'the story of the Cornish emigration is the biggest and most significant of Cornish Themes', a claim that he put to the test in The Cornish in America, published in 1969. A.C. Todd and John Rowe - those two other founding fathers of Cornish emigration history - also helped to pioneer the study of the Cornish abroad, pointing the way for alter writers who would take the story beyond the United States and Mexico to encompass Australia, South Africa, South America and elsewhere. Yet it is only very recently that we have been able to construct an overview of the Great Emigration in its entirety, to pull together the numerous strands of an extraordinarily complex and intriguing phenomenon. The result is this present volume: The Cornish Overseas.
Full Product Details
Author: Philip Payton
Publisher: University of Exeter Press
Imprint: University of Exeter Press
Dimensions:
Width: 15.00cm
, Height: 1.50cm
, Length: 22.70cm
Weight: 0.386kg
ISBN: 9780859899994
ISBN 10: 0859899993
Pages: 466
Publication Date: 01 September 2015
Audience:
General/trade
,
College/higher education
,
General
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Tertiary & Higher Education
Replaced By: 9781905816101
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: Out of stock
The supplier is temporarily out of stock of this item. It will be ordered for you on backorder and shipped when it becomes available.
Reviews
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. (Professor Andrew Thompson, Chair of History, University of Exeter) 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. (Professor Eric Richards, Emeritus Professor of History, Flinders University of South Australia)
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. (Professor Andrew Thompson, Chair of History, University of Exeter) 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. (Professor Eric Richards, Emeritus Professor of History, Flinders University of South Australia)
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. (Professor Andrew Thompson, Chair of History, University of Exeter) 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. (Professor Eric Richards, Emeritus Professor of History, Flinders University of South Australia)
Author Information
Philip Payton is Emeritus Professor of Cornish & Australian Studies in the University of Exeter and Professor of History at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and the former Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies, University of Exeter. He edited Cornish Studies, published annually from 1993-2013, the only series of publications that seeks to investigate and understand the complex nature of Cornish identity, as well as to discuss its implications for society and governance in contemporary Cornwall. Payton served in the Royal Navy for thirty years, a dozen as a regular and the remainder as a reservist, retiring in the rank of Commander. He was inter alia Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and International Affairs at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, 1989-91. Recent books include A.L. Rowse and Cornwall: A Paradoxical Patriot (2005, paperback 2007), Making Moonta: The Invention of Australia's Little Cornwall (2007), John Betjeman and Cornwall: 'The Celebrated Cornish Nationalist' (2010), Regional Australia and the Great War: 'The Boys from Old Kio' (2012) and The Maritime History of Cornwall (2014).
