Lay, Patricia
Description
Emigration was a common nineteenth century Cornish
experience. It occurred as Cornish men and women dispersed
across the world as a result of downturns in mining and in the
other traditional Cornish industries of farming and fishing.
Cornish emigrants left a land whose differences from other parts
of Britain had been maintained through centuries of isolation and
through Cornwall's separate ethnicity, history, geography and
culture.
The most common pattern of emigration was that...[Show more] of
Cornish miners, and those in related occupations, moving to a
mining area and settling there in a recognisably Cornish
community.
There was no mining industry in New South Wales before
the mid-nineteenth century, and early Cornish immigrants to the
colony were generally those from the landowning classes who had
sufficient capital to set themselves up on land in the colony.
It was only when schemes for free and assisted passages were
introduced later in the century, that Cornish men and women from
the labouring classes were able to contemplate emigration to New
South Wales. The stated occupations of the majority of these
assisted immigrants were labourer or tradesmen, with a minority
of miners. Although they did not fit the general pattern of
miners forming a discrete community near the mines, these Cornish
immigrants followed settlement patterns similar to those in other
emigrant destinations.
The numbers of assisted immigrants to the colony were
swelled by other Cornish who had paid their own fares, or who had
come first to other Australian colonies. Some settled in gold,
tin or copper mining communities, while others went to inland
farming districts. Still others settled in Sydney or along the
coast. In all of these places, they gathered in recognisably
Cornish communities.
As in Cornwall, and in other emigrant destinations, many
of the Cornish who came to New South Wales were Methodists.
Cornish immigrants were usually involved in other community
groups as well, and often in local and colonial politics. They became good citizens of their adopted country without losing
their Cornish identity.
They settled, and remained, as cohesive and recognisably
Cornish groups in New South Wales because of their cultural and
ethnic differences from other settlers. Other factors were their
practices of chain migration and intermarriage (which sometimes
occurred over several generations), shared occupational skills,
and personal choice.
In New South Wales, where the occupation of mining was
not the major determinant in the choice of settlement areas,
Cornish immigrants continued the pattern set in mining
communities across the world. They settled and remained together
showing that, in New South Wales, this decision was strongly
influenced by personal choice. They stayed together because they
chose to do so, because they were Cornish.
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