The Cornish Miner Overseas

Cornwall - the birthplace of the World's modern mining industry.

Important aspects of Cornwall's Social and Industrial heritage are to be found scattered throughout the world.

The English Industrial Revolution, a time of great inventions and industrial progress within England, created an increasing need for both tin and copper, commodities that Cornwall was unusually rich in.

With the revolution came the most important invention of its time. In 1715 Thomas Newcomen's first steam engine was operational, a device which was to revolutionise the mining industry. The invention of the steam engine provided a means of efficiently removing water from mines, a problem that had hindered the development of deep mines throughout the world.

The early steam or beam engines were extremely inefficient and in addition consumed large quantities of coal. Whilst this did not seriously affect mines close to the coal fields, where coal was relatively cheap, the early engines were expensive to operate in the mines of Cornwall where the nearest coal was some 200 miles away in South Wales and the only means of transport was by sea. Situated at the South Western extremity of England, communication between the main centres of England and Cornwall in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were poor and the easiest means of travel was by sea.

This 'isolation' and the relatively high cost of fuel resulted in great efforts being made within the county to improve the efficiency of the beam engines and in the establishment of industries to service the many hundreds of tin and copper mines which operated. ( there are records of over 3,500 mines in the county ) The result was the development of the Cornish Beam Engine, the most efficient steam pumping engine ever developed, and the establishment of major foundries to build the engines which were exported throughout the world. By the early eighteenth century Cornwall was by far the world's most technically advanced mining region.

Efficient pumping of water resulted in mines being sunk to greater depths than had previously been possible. New more efficient mining methods were developed as both production and the depth of the mines increased. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Cornwall was without doubt a 'dynamic centre'. It was at Redruth in 1798 that Richard Murdoch, an engineer, invented the use of gas for domestic purposes, his house was the world's first house to be lit by gaslight. On Christmas Eve 1801 the first successful steam road locomotive travelled in Camborne, the invention of Richard Trevithick who also built the world's first railway in 1804 and also developed the high-pressure steam boiler in 1815. At Tuckingmill near Camborne in 1823 William Bickford invented the safety fuse, still manufactured in much the same way today.

By the end of the eighteenth century Cornish miners and engineers were taking their engines and newly developed methods of deep mining throughout the world. First as contract workers and later as economic migrants. They travelled to all the mining districts of the world, north America, Africa, Europe and Australia and, with the end of Spanish domination, to Latin America. During the nineteenth century the Cornish people became the most widely travelled people in Europe and knew Australia, South Africa, the United States and Mexico far better than they did England !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Cornish in Latin America - A website devoted to the Cornish in Latin America. Results from Dr Sharron Schwartz's research and writing about nineteenth and early twentieth century Cornish migration to South and Central America and the Spanish Caribbean.

If you have any information on Cornish people overseas we would be very interested to make contact with you. Please email richard@poldarkmine.co.uk or write to Richard Williams, Poldark Mine, Wendron, Helston, Cornwall TR13 0ES

Page ammended 4th August 2007