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The Cornish Overseasspans the globe
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‘The Great Emigration’
Philip Payton writes in his introduction: ‘The wholesale scattering of so-called Cousin Jacks and Jennies known to modern scholars as the ‘Great Emigration’, ran 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’.
Click here to order copies of The Cornish Overseas on-line. Or order from your nearest Cornwall Editions office (below) or your local bookstore
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Cornwall Editions is taking the launch of the paperback edition of The Cornish Overseas to the heartlands of traditional Cornish emigration. A reception in the Mayor’s parlour at the Town Hall in Kadina, South Australia, courtesy of the Mayor of the Copper Coast, Mr Paul Thomas, sets the book in motion on Wednesday May 11th. Ian Grant, Publisher of Cornwall Editions, hosts the event, at which Professor Philip Payton will summarise the grand themes in the book. Philip Payton has completely revised and enlarged the book and added chapters that bring the story up to December 2004.The launch is an important event at the Kernewek Lowender festival in the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia. Known as Australia’s ‘Little Cornwall’ it is the location of ground-breaking Cornish exploration and development of the copper mining industry in the 19th century
Crossing the Pacific
Later in May, we present the book at the gathering of the Cornish Cousins of California, meeting in Sacramento, California. Much of the action and commentary in the book revolves around the communities of Grass Valley, California and other significant Cornish presences that were founding settlements in California’s miningindustry. Finally, the book will form part of Cornwall Editions’presentation at the 13th Gathering of Cornish Cousins at Mars Hill, North Carolina in July. Collamer M.Abbott suggests that ‘it may be literally true that there was at some time a “Cousin Jack” in every copper mine in the Appalachian Range from Maine to Alabama’. The13th Gathering will remember some of those early emigrants, many named and discussed in The Cornish Overseas.
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Tregarthen’s 1909 classic has powerful modern message
J. C. Tregarthen was a passionate naturalist. He conveys his unusual understanding of the ways of the countryside in prose that is as fresh now as when it was first written, almost 100 years ago. His text ‘set dramatic new parameters for wildlife writing’ says Howard Curnow, Chairman of the Cornwall Wildlife Trust. This minutely observed, endlessly fascinating and graphic tale of wild animals in the Cornish countryside is a powerful appeal for man and mammals to live side-by-side. We re-publish it in a high-quality paperback, available now.
Today, Cornwall provides the full range of habitats required by the otter in freshwater, from upland headwaters to lowland reaches. Otters need high water quality, good fish stocks and areas of undisturbed riparian vegetation such as scrub and wet meadows, all of which are available in Cornwall. When the otter population was at a national low point in the UK otters remained in Cornwall, although in lower numbers, and rivers such as the Camel and the Fowey maintained relatively healthy populations. It was from those river catchments that the otter populations have once again spread out and otters are now believed to be present in river catchments throughout Cornwall. You can visit the Otter Trust’s Tamar Otter sanctuary (from April to October) at North Petherwin, five miles east of Launceston (tel: 01566 785 646).
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Cornishman in hole at Pole
Cornishman in hole at Pole
Late last year, a team from Seacore, headquartered in Gweek, at the head of the Helford river, drove a shaft
down through the ice cap of the North Pole,down through the Arctic ocean,down into the bedrock beneath
the sea. They were uniquely successful, where teams from other nations had tried and failed, in retrieving
rock core samples that told scientists of climatic conditions many thousands of years ago. It was
information critical to the debate on climate change. The climax of Allen Buckley’s new work on Cornish
mining is a chapter that forcibly reminds us that the skills and courage that drove the astonishing industrial
revolution that was the Cornish mining industry of the 19th century are alive, well and kicking today.
Allen Buckley,MPhil, FRHS, is the most modest of men yet few are as qualified to offer a new synthesis of
the history of the Cornish mining industry. He has been a miner for more than 30 years and worked
underground at South Crofty and Geevor for many of those years. He turned his hand to consultancy and
has been the Managing Director of Crofty Consultancy for 13 years. Allen is also eminent as an educator
and was Master of the Camborne School of Mines. He continues to lecture widely and to write popular
works grounded in unrivalled knowledge and historical scholarship.
Cornwall Editions will publish Allen Buckley’s new book later in 2005. |
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Slow down the clock with
Caradoc Peters
Narrative archaeology |
Mulfra quoit, Penwith |
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The expanse of time covered by Caradoc Peters in
The Archaeology of Cornwall is almost unimaginable. His
story of Cornwall begins more than half a million years
ago and, astonishingly, he leaves us at the end of his text in
the modern age. It is a magisterial sweep through
complex interweaving narratives: somehow Caradoc
draws out his themes to present us with a coherent and
gripping story. In a discipline – archaeology - that can be
regarded as a little dry and academic, the author has
created a living picture of the changing social history of
Cornwall, as depicted in the wealth of artefacts and
structures that have been found and studied over the ages.
Nick Johnson, County Archaeologist, refers in his
introduction to the amount of documentation that has
accompanied an accelerating programme of
archaeological investigation in Cornwall and says that
Caradoc ‘…has managed to read, and create from these
sources a new and engaging story that binds together long
held and durable narratives with new and challenging
interpretations’.
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St. Mary Magdalene, Launceston
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The archaeology of ideas |
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Caradoc does not only deal with history one can touch –
he engages with ideas, faiths and myths. He comes face to
face with King Arthur – and doesn’t blink. He wrestles
with the question, ‘Are the Cornish a nation?’ Nick
Johnson again:
‘No one else has attempted to match the known
archaeological facts with the received myths and stories
associated together dealing with two thousand years of
history. The author threads his way carefully through this
tangled world of prejudice, myth and known facts to
provide us with a story that is both a best fit with the
available evidence and does not do irreparable damage to
the beliefs that there is something very special about this
peninsula.’
The Cornish Family, published last year, is sub-titled ‘The
roots of our future’; the sub-title to The Archaeology of
Cornwall, the second in our series of major volumes on
the nature of the Cornwall we live in, is ‘The foundations
of our society’. Steadily we will add to the series new
works of scholarship with popular appeal, developing a
unique source of understanding, combined with the
pleasure of owning a collection of books produced to the
highest of traditional standards. The print run of this
luxuriously bound, fully illustrated edition is limited.
To order click here. |
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Literary Lions
The storm lion of Penzance was launched at Penlee
House, Penzance, at a reception that included friends
and family of the author and illustrator, Cornwall
Editions’ customers, booksellers and authors. Troon
Harrison travelled from Canada to participate and
gave a moving and thoughtful speech on the themes
in her work that derive from her journeys between
homes in Canada and Cornwall throughout her
childhood – adventure,uncertainty, roots, change and
the importance of family were the keynotes. |
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…..Cornish voices from around the world
The early European inhabitants of Moonta, South
Australia, thought it was the hub of the universe and they
were as Cornish as they come. The Cornwall Furnace, in
Pennsylvania, turned out cannonballs that were fired by
gunners fighting for American freedom from Britain in the
18th century. Generations on, Cornish-Americans,
Cornish-Australians and many other hyphenated Cornish
make up a global community that has a common root, a
shared sense of Cornishness, an idea of Cornwall as a home
from home….or do we? What does it mean, to have a dual
identity? In an age in which people migrate more than in
any other, some through choice, many through necessity,
what do the successors of migrant communities feel about
their identity? How do they express it? What’s it for? And
how is it different in New Zealand, Mexico, Canada
or Cuba? Sharron Schwartz would like you to tell her.
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Dr Schwartz, whom many will know from her travels
around the world researching and discussing the
community of Cornish, is collecting contributions
about people’s sense of Cornishness as expressed by
individuals all over the world. She will draw together
themes and contrasts, patterns and exceptions in what
people have to say. Cornwall Editions will publish her work
in 2006 in a new book: One and All, Cornish voices from
around the world.
The voices are your voices. If you would like to contribute,
Sharron has a list of questions and prompts to memory and
discussion. Ask for a copy, at our website or any one of the
offices below. Let us know your thoughts and feelings
about your Cornish identity and let your own words form
part of this fascinating new book. |
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