Cornish people
Encyclopedia
The Cornish are a people associated with Cornwall
, a county and Duchy in the south-west
of the United Kingdom
that is seen in some respects as distinct from England, having more in common with the other Celtic parts of the United Kingdom such as Wales
, as well as with other Celtic nations
in Europe
. For some, the Cornish represent a distinct ethnic group
within the UK, which can trace its roots to the ancient Britons
who inhabited southern and central Great Britain
prior to the Roman conquest, and some in the county today continue to assert a distinct identity, separately or in addition to English or British identities. Cornish identity has been adopted by migrants into Cornwall, as well as by emigrant and descendant communities from Cornwall, the latter sometimes referred to as the Cornish diaspora.
Throughout classical antiquity
, the ancient Britons formed a series of tribes, cultures and identities in Great Britain; the Dumnonii
and Cornovii
were the Celtic tribes who inhabited what was to become Cornwall during the Iron Age
, Roman
and post-Roman
periods. The name Cornwall and its demonym
Cornish are derived from the Celtic Cornovii tribe. A watershed in the early history of Cornwall
was the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th to 6th centuries, which pushed Celtic culture to the northern and western fringes of Great Britain. The Battle of Deorham
between the Britons and Anglo-Saxons
resulted in a loss of landlinks
between the Brittonic peoples of Wales
and Cornwall. The Cornish people, who shared the Brythonic language
with the Welsh, were referred to in the Old English language as the Westwalas meaning West Welsh.
The Cornish people and their Brythonic Cornish language
experienced a process of anglicisation
and attrition
during the Medieval
and early Modern Period
s, so much so that Cornwall and the Cornish were considered components of England and the English. By the 18th century, and following the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain
, the Cornish language and identity had faded, replaced by the English language
and British identity
. A Celtic revival
during the early-20th century enabled a cultural self-consciousness in Cornwall that revitalised the Cornish language and roused the Cornish to express a distinctly Celtic heritage.
In mid 2008, the population of Cornwall, including the Isles of Scilly
was estimated to be 534,300. For effectively all governmental, cartographical
and statistical purposes, Cornwall is a part of England, but the Cornish self-government movement
has called for greater recognition of Cornish culture, politics and language, challenging the constitutional status of Cornwall
and urging that Cornish people be accorded greater status, exemplified by their request they be constituted as ethnically distinct in the United Kingdom Census 2011
. The Cornish language was granted official recognition under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
in 2002, but the Cornish people "struggle for recognition as a national group distinct from the English" outside of Cornwall, and are not afforded protection under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
.
, the Cornish were accorded the same status as the English
and Welsh
; they were considered a separate race or nation
, distinct from their neighbours, with their own language, society and customs. A process of Anglicisation
between 1485 and 1700 led to the Cornish adopting English language, culture and civic identity, a view reinforced by Cornish historian A. L. Rowse
who said they were gradually "absorbed into the mainstream of English life". Although "decidedly modern" and "largely retrospective" in its identity politics
, Cornish and Celtic associations have advanced the notion of a distinct Cornish national and ethnic identity since the late 20th century. In the United Kingdom Census 2001
, despite no explicit "Cornish" option being available, approximately 34,000 people in Cornwall and 3,500 people elsewhere in the UK—a combined total equal to nearly 7 per cent of the population of Cornwall—identified themselves as ethnic Cornish by writing this in under the "other" ethnicity option. A campaign has called for the inclusion of a specific Cornish tick box in the United Kingdom Census 2011, but this has been resisted by the Office for National Statistics
.
The Cornish have been described as "a special case" in England, with an "ethnic rather than regional identity". Structural changes to the politics of the United Kingdom
, particularly the European Union
and devolution
, have been the cited as the main stimulus to "a growing interest in Cornish identity and distinctiveness" in late-20th century Britain. The British
are the citizens of the United Kingdom, a people which by convention consists of four national societies: the English, Irish
/Northern Irish
, Scots
and Welsh. The notion that the Cornish are to be classified as a nation comparable to the English, Irish, Scots and Welsh, "has practically vanished from the popular consciousness" outside Cornwall, and so, despite a "real and substantive" identity, the Cornish "struggle for recognition as a national group distinct from the English". The Cornish are not afforded protection under the Council of Europe
's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
as Her Majesty's Government does not believe they meet the definition of a 'racial group' as defined in the Race Relations Act 1976
. Furthermore, there are inhabitants of Cornwall who may have multiple political allegiances, adopting mixed, dual or hyphenated identities such as "Cornish first and British second", "Cornish and British and European", or, like Phil Vickery (a rugby union
prop for the England national rugby union team
and British and Irish Lions
), describe themselves as "Cornish" and "English". Meanwhile another international rugby union player, Josh Matavesi
, describes himself as Cornish-Fijian
and Cornish not English.
In November 2010 British prime-minister, David Cameron
, said "I think Cornish national identity is very powerful" and that his government would "devolve a lot of power to Cornwall - that will go to the Cornish unitary authority."
failed to win the support of parliament in 2009. As a consequence, posters were created by the census organisation and Cornwall Council which advised residents of how they could identify themselves as Cornish by writing it in the national identity, and ethnicity sections and record Cornish in the main language section. Additionally, people could record Cornwall as their country of birth.
Like other identities, Cornish has an allocated census code, (06) the same as for 2001, which will apply and will be counted throughout Britain. People were first able to record their ethnicity as Cornish in the 2001 UK Census, and some 37,000 people did so by writing it in.
2006: 24 percent
2007: 27 percent
2008: 30 percent
2009: 34 percent
2010: 37 percent
2011: 41 percent
, many (but not all) of whom are descended from the Anglo-Saxons
who colonised Great Britain
from their homelands in northern Europe
and drove the Celts to Britain's western and northern fringes. However, some DNA research investigating the genetic history of the British Isles
suggests that three quarters of contemporary Y-chromosomes of British people
—including the Cornish—originate from hunter-gatherer
s who settled in Atlantic Europe
during the Paleolithic
era, "after the melting of the ice caps but before the land broke away from the mainland and divided into islands". Archaeological
evidence supports pre-historic human habitation in Cornwall, at least as early as the Lower Paleolithic
. Although there was a separation of the British Isles
from continental Europe
as a consequence of the last ice age
, genetic evidence indicates that the people of Great Britain broadly share a common ancestry with the Basque people
who live in the Basque Country by the Pyrenees
. On this basis, geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer
suggests that the first settlers of Great Britain were unlikely to have spoken one of the Celtic languages
, but rather an ancient tongue related to the Basque language
. The next historical immigration to Great Britain
occurred during the Neolithic
period, interpreted by Bryan Sykes
—professor of human genetics
at the University of Oxford
—as the arrival of the Celts from the Iberian Peninsula
, and the origin of Britain's and Ireland's Celtic tribes. It is these people who are considered the progenitors of the Cornish. A study by the Wellcome Trust
, led by Sir Walter Bodmer
and published on Channel 4's Faces of Britain in April 2007, showed that the Cornish people have a particular variant of the Melanocortin 1 receptor
gene, identifying them as Celts more closely related to the Welsh than to the English. Within the areas of the UK studied, this gene appeared in 26 per cent of the population of Orkney, 23 per cent of Devon
, 21 per cent of Wales, 16 per cent of Cornwall, 13 per cent of Kent
, and 11 per cent of North East England
.
Throughout classical antiquity
the Celts spoke Celtic languages
, and formed a series of tribes, cultures and identities, notably the Picts
and Gaels
in the north and the Britons
in the south. The Britons were themselves a divided people; although they shared the Brythonic languages
, they were tribal, and divided into regional societies, and within them sub-groups. Examples of these tribal societies were the Brigantes
in the north, and the Ordovices
, the Demetae
, the Silures
and the Deceangli
in the west. In the extreme southwest, what was to become Cornwall, were the Dumnonii
and Cornovii
, who lived in the Kingdom of Dumnonia
. The Roman conquest of Britain
in the 1st century introduced Romans
to Britain, who upon their arrival initially recorded the Dumnonii, but later reported on the Cornovii, who were possibly a sub-group of the Dumnonii. Although the Romans colonised much of central and southern Britain, Dumnonia was "virtually unaffected" by the conquest; Roman rule had little or no impact on the region, meaning it could flourish as a semi- or fully independent Kingdom of Cornwall
which evidence shows was sometimes under the dominion of the kings of the Britons
, and sometimes to have been governed by its own Dumnonian monarchy
, either by the title of duke or king. This petty kingdom
shared strong linguistic, political and cultural links with Brittany
, a peninsula on continental Europe
south of Cornwall inhabited by Britons; the Cornish and Breton language
s were nearly indistinguishable in this period, and both Cornwall and Brittany remain dotted with dedications to the same Celtic saint
s.
The Sack of Rome
in the year 410 prompted a complete Roman departure from Britain, and Cornwall then experienced an influx of Celtic Christian
missionaries from Ireland
whom had a profound effect upon the early Cornish people, their culture, faith and architecture. The ensuing decline of the Roman Empire
encouraged the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. The Angles
, Jutes
, Frisii
and Saxons
, Germanic peoples
from northern Europe, established petty kingdoms and settled over much of what was to become England, and parts of southern Scotland
, progressively defeating the Britons in battle. The Saxons of the Kingdom of Wessex
in particular were eradicating Celtic and Romano-British culture in Britain, expanding their territory westwards towards Cornwall. The Cornish were frequently embattled with the Wessex Saxons, who used their Germanic word walha
(modern English: Welsh) meaning "stranger" or "foreigner", to describe their Cornish Briton opponents, later specifying them as the Westwalas (West Welsh) or Cornwalas (the Cornish). Conflict continued until King Athelstan of England
agreed the River Tamar
be the formal boundary between the English Saxons and the Cornish in the year 936, making Cornwall one of the last retreats of the Britons encouraging the development of a distinct Cornish identity; Brittonic culture in Britain became confined to Cornwall, North West England
and Wales
. Although a treaty was agreed, Anglo-Saxon political influence stretched westwards until around the late 10th century when "Cornwall was definitively incorporated into the Kingdom of England
".
, which began with an invasion by the troops of William, Duke of Normandy (later, King William I of England
) in 1066, resulted in the removal of the Anglo-Saxon derived monarchy, aristocracy, and clerical hierarchy and its replacement by Normans
, Scandinavian Vikings from northern France. The shire
s of England were progressively divided amongst the companions of William I of England, who served as England's new nobility. The English would come to absorb the Normans, but the Cornish "vigorously resisted" their influence. At the time of the conquest, Cornwall was under the governance of Cadoc of Cornwall
, the last Earl of Cornwall to be directly descended from the ancient monarchy of Cornwall. The Earldom of Cornwall had held devolved
semi-sovereignty
from England, but in 1067 was granted to Robert, Count of Mortain
, King William I's half-brother, and ruled thereafter by an Anglo-Norman
aristocracy; in the Domesday Book
, the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, "virtually all" landowners in Cornwall "had English names, making it impossible to be sure who was Cornish and who was English by race". However, there was a persistent and "continuing differentiation" between the English and Cornish peoples during the Middle Ages, as evidenced by documents such as the 1173 charter
of Truro
which made explicit mention of both peoples as distinct.
The Earldom of Cornwall passed to various English nobles throughout the High Middle Ages
, but in 1337 the earldom was given the status of a duchy
, and Edward, the Black Prince
, the first son and heir of King Edward III of England
, became the first Duke of Cornwall
as a means for the prince to raise his own capital. Large parts of Cornwall were owned by Edward, 1st Duke of Cornwall, and successive English Dukes of Cornwall became the largest landowners in Cornwall; The monarchy of England established two special administrative institutions in Cornwall, the first being the Duchy of Cornwall
(one of only two in the Kingdom of England) and the second being the Cornish Stannary Courts and Parliaments
(which governed Cornwall's tin industry). These two institutions allowed "ordinary Cornish people to believe that they had been granted a unique constitutional status to reflect their unique cultural identity". However, the Duchy of Cornwall gradually lost its political autonomy from England, a state which became increasingly centralised in London
, and by the early-Tudor period
the Cornish had begun to see themselves as "a conquered people whose culture, liberties, and prosperity had been downgraded by the English". This view was exacerbated in the 1490s by heavy tax
ation imposed by King Henry VII of England
upon the impoverished Cornish to raise funds for his military campaigns against King James IV of Scotland
and Perkin Warbeck
, as well as Henry VII's suspension of the privileges of the Cornish Stannaries. Having provided "more than their fair share of soldiers and sailors" for the conflict in northern England
, and feeling aggrieved at "Cornwall's status as England's poorest county", a popular uprising
out of Cornwall ensued—the Cornish Rebellion of 1497
. The rebellion was initially a political march from St Keverne
to London led by Thomas Flamank
and Michael An Gof
, motivated by a "mixture of reasons"; to raise money for charity; to celebrate their community; to present their grievances to the Parliament of England
, but gathered pace across the West Country
as a revolt against the king.
Cornish was the most widely spoken language west of the River Tamar until around the mid-1300s, when Middle English
began to be adopted as a common language of the Cornish people. As late as 1542 Andrew Boorde
, an English traveller, physician and writer, wrote that in Cornwall were two languages, "Cornysshe" and "Englysshe", but that "there may be many men and women" in Cornwall who could not understand English. While the Norman language
was in use by much of the English aristocracy, Cornish was used as a lingua franca
, particularly in the remote far west of Cornwall. Many Cornish landed gentry
chose mottos in the Cornish language for their coat of arms
, highlighting its socially high status. However, in 1549 and following the English Reformation
, King Edward VI of England
commanded that the Book of Common Prayer
, an Anglican
liturgical text in the English language, should be introduced to all churches in his kingdom, meaning that Latin
and Celtic customs and services should be discontinued. The Prayer Book Rebellion
was a militant revolt in Cornwall and parts of neighbouring Devon
against the Act of Uniformity 1549
, which outlawed all languages from church services apart from English, and is specified as a testament to the affection and loyalty the Cornish people held for the Cornish language. In the rebellion, separate risings occurred simultaneously in Bodmin
in Corwall, and Sampford Courtenay
in Devon—which would both converge at Exeter
, laying siege to the region's largest Protestant city. However, the rebellion was suppressed thanks largely to the aid of foreign mercenaries in a series of battles in which "hundreds were killed", effectively ending Cornish as the common language of the Cornish people. The Anglicanism of the Reformation served as a vehicle for Anglicisation in Cornwall; Protestantism
had a lasting cultural effect upon the Cornish by way of linking Cornwall more closely with England, while lessening political and linguistic ties with the Bretons
of Brittany.
The English Civil War
, a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians
and Royalists
, polarised the populations of England and Wales. However, Cornwall in the English Civil War
was a staunchly Royalist enclave, an "important focus of support for the Royalist cause". Cornish soldiers were used as scouts and spies during the war, for their language was not understood by English Parliamentarians. The peace that followed the close of the war led to a further shift to the English language by the Cornish people, which encouraged an influx of English people to Cornwall. By the mid-17th century the use of the Cornish language had retreated far enough west to prompt concern and investigation by antiquarians, such as William Scawen
. As the Cornish language diminished the people of Cornwall underwent a process of English enculturation
and assimilation
, becoming "absorbed into the mainstream of English life".
The Industrial Revolution
had a major impact upon the Cornish people. Cornwall's economy was fully integrated into England's, and mining in Cornwall
, always an important source of employment and stability of the Cornish, experienced a process of industrialisation
resulting in 30 per cent of Cornwall's adult population being employed by its mines. During this period, efforts were made by Cornish engineers to design steam engine
s with which to power water pumps for Cornish mines thus aiding the extraction of mineral ore. Industrial scale tin and copper mining operations in Cornwall melded Cornish identity with engines and heavy industry, and Cornwall's leading mining engineer, Richard Trevithick
, became "as much a part of Cornwall's heritage as any legendary giant from its Celtic past". Trevithick's most significant success was a high-pressure steam engine used to pump water and refuse from mines, but he was also the builder of the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive
. On 21 February 1804, the world's first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place as Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway
of the Penydarren
ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil
in Wales
.
The construction of the Great Western Railway
during the Victorian era
allowed for an influx of tourists to Cornwall from across Great Britain. Well in to the Edwardian era and interwar period
, Cornwall was branded as a rural retreat, a "primitive land of magic and romance", and as an "earlier incarnation of Englishness, a place more English than an England ravaged by modernity". Cornwall, the United Kingdom's only region with a subtropical-like climate
, became a centre for English tourism
, its coastline dominated by resort town
s increasingly composed of bungalow
s and villa
s. Tourists visiting Cornwall are called emmets by locals, a Cornish language word for insects, referring to the creatures that the visitors resemble when swarming Cornwall's resorts.
In the latter half of the 19th century Cornwall experienced rapid deindustrialisation, with the closure of mines in particular considered by the Cornish to be both an economic and cultural disaster. This, coupled with the rise of Romantic nationalism
in Europe inspired and influenced a Celtic Revival
in Cornwall, a social, linguistic and artistic movement interested in Cornish medieval ethnology
. This Revivalist upsurge investigated Cornwall's pre-industrial culture, using the Cornish language as the "principal badge of [Cornish] nationality and ethnic kinship”. The first effective revival of Cornish began in 1904 when Henry Jenner
, a Celtic language enthusiast, published his book Handbook of the Cornish Language. His orthography, Unified Cornish
, was based on Cornish as it was spoken in the 18th century, although his pupil Robert Morton Nance
later steered the revival more towards the Middle Cornish that had been used in the 16th century, before the language became influenced by English.
The visit of King George IV to Scotland
in 1822 reinvigorated Scottish national identity
, melding it with romanticist notions of tartan
, kilt
s and the Scottish Highlands
. As Pan-Celticism
gathered pace in the early 20th century, Cornishman L. C. R. Duncombe-Jewell
and the Cowethas Kelto-Kernuak (a Cornish language interest group) asserted the use of Cornish kilts and tartans as a "national dress ... common to all Celtic countries". In 1924 the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies
was formed to facilitate, preserve and maintain Celticity in Cornwall, followed by the similar Gorseth Kernow
in 1928, and the formation of the Cornish nationalist
political party Mebyon Kernow
in 1951. Increased interest and communication across the Celtic nations
in Celtic languages and culture during the 1960s and 1970s spurred on the popularisation of the Cornish self-government movement
. Since devolution
in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, enthusiasts for Cornish culture have pressed for the Cornish language to be taught formally in Cornish schools, while Cornish nationalists have demanded greater political autonomy for Cornwall, for example that it be constituted as the United Kingdom's fifth consistuent country
with its own Cornish Assembly
.
in the early modern period were involved in the British colonisation of the Americas and other transcontinental and transatlantic migrations
. Initially, the number of migrants was comparatively small, with those who left Cornwall typically settling in North America
or else amongst the ports and plantation
s of the Caribbean
.
In the first half of the 19th century, the Cornish people were leaders in tin
and copper
smelting, while mining in Cornwall
was the people's major occupation. Increased competition from Australia
, British Malaya
and Bolivia
, coupled with the depletion of mineral deposits brought about an economic decline for Cornish mining lasting half a century, and prompting mass human migration
from Cornwall. In each decade from 1861 to 1901, "around 20% of the Cornish male population migrated abroad"—three times that of the average of England and Wales
—and totalling over a quarter of a million people lost to emigration between 1841 and 1901. There was a displacement of skilled Cornish engineers, farmers, merchants, miners and tradesmen, but their commercial and occupational expertise, particularly in hard rock mining, was highly valued by the communities they met. Within Great Britain
, Cornish families were attracted from Cornwall to North East England
—particularly on Teesside
—to partake in coal mining
as a means to earn wealth by using their mining skill. This has resulted in a concentration of Cornish names on and around Teesside that persists into the 21st century.
Large numbers of the 19th century Cornish emigrants eventually returned to Cornwall, whilst the rate of emigration from Cornwall declined after World War I
. However, the global connections of the remaining Cornish diaspora, which is concentrated in English-speaking countries
such as Australia, Canada
, South Africa
and the United States
, are "very strong". Their outreach has contributed to the international spread of Methodism
, a movement within Protestant
Christianity that was popular with the Cornish people at the time of their mass migration. "Cousin Jacks" is a nickname for the overseas Cornish, thought to derive from the practice of Cornishmen asking if job vacancies could be filled by their cousin named Jack in Cornwall.
in the 19th century. A "vigorous recruiting campaign" was launched to encourage the Cornish to aid with mining in Australia
because of their experience and expertise. Free passage to South Australia
in particular was granted to hundreds of Cornish miners and their families, so much so, that a large Cornish community gathered in Australia's Copper Coast
, and South Australia's Yorke Peninsula
became known as "Little Cornwall”. It has been estimated between 1837 and 1840, 15 per cent of all assisted migrants to South Australia were Cornish.
Cornish settlement impacted upon social, cultural and religious life throughout the history of South Australia
. Cornish identity was embraced strongly in the Yorke Peninsula, but also in the more outlying mining towns of Kapunda and Burra
, where Cornish miners constituted a sizeable community. Methodism
, was the main form of religious practice for the Cornish. Methodist sensibilities were held with strong conviction by the migrant Cornish in a direct rivalry with Catholic Irish people
in Australia. The Kernewek Lowender
is the largest Cornish festival in the world, held in the Kadina
, Moonta
and Wallaroo
towns on the Yorke Peninsula, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors bi-annually.
was rare until at least the 19th century. The British colonisation of the Americas encouraged additional migration of the Cornish to the Canadas
, particularly by those who served in Great Britain's Royal Navy
. The creation of the colony of British North America
spurred more people from Cornwall to settle in North America; they were registered as English migrants. Many Cornish (and other West Country) immigrants who had been agricultural labourers settled in an area of what is now South Central Ontario in what were the counties of Northumberland, Durham and Ontario, ranging from the towns of Port Hope and Cobourg in the east, to Whitby in the west and to the north ends of those counties. (Source:
Encyclopedia of Canada's peoples By Paul R. Magocsi, Multicultural History Society of Ontario)
In 1825 a band of 60 Cornishmen left Falmouth
for Mineral del Monte
in central Mexico
with 1500 tonnes (1,476.3 LT) of mining machinery with which to apply their mining skill and technologies to resuscitate Mexico's ailing silver mining
industry after the neglect caused by the Mexican War of Independence
. Following their sea voyage they attempted to dock at Veracruz
but were forced away by the Spanish
to a beach at Mocambo from where they hauled their machinery through jungle and swamp to Santa Fe. During this haul through the jungle, the Cornishmen and their Mexican helpers fell victim to yellow fever
, resulting in 30 Cornish and 100 Mexican fatalities. The fever forced the survivors to abandon their equipment and head inland up into the mountains to Xalapa to try and escape the mosquitos for three months, until the end of the rainy season. Once the rainy season closed the Cornish and Mexican miners continued their 250 miles (402 km) "Great Trek" to Mineral del Monte, transporting their machinery to an altitude of 10000 feet (3,048 m) above sea level and arriving at their destination on 1 May 1826. Following their arrival, the Cornish community flourished and stayed in central Mexico until the Mexican Revolution
in 1910. Although the Cornish community in Mexico broadly returned to Cornwall, they left a cultural legacy; Cornish pasties, Cornish mining museums and a Cornish Mexican Cultural Society are all part of the local heritage and tradition in and around Mineral del Monte.
of 1886 encouraged large numbers of Cornish miners to migrate to the South African Republic
. Although an international
gold rush, the Cornish overwhelmingly formed the skilled labour force in the Witwatersrand
, until the outbreak of the Second Boer War
prompted a retreat.
in North America prompted an influx of Cornish miners to the continent, particularly around the Upper Mississippi River
. By the early 19th century Cornish people were present in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
—particularly the mining town of Ishpeming
. Additional waves of Cornish migrants followed the California Gold Rush
of the mid-19th century; in the 1890s it was estimated that in California's Grass Valley
, over 60 per cent of the population was Cornish. It has a tradition of carols
stemming from the Cornish who settled the area as gold miners in the 19th century. The carols have become “the identity of the town”, some of the members of the Grass Valley Cornish Carol Choir are descendents of the original Cornish settlers.
Most migratory Cornish to the United States were classified as English or British, meaning that the precise number of Cornish American
s is difficult to estimate. The aggregate number of immigrants from Cornwall to the United States before World War I
is suggested to be around 100,000.
The survival of a distinct Cornish culture
has been attributed to Cornwall's geographic isolation. Contemporaneously, the underlying notion of Cornish culture is that it is distinct from the culture of England
, despite its anglicisation
, and that it is instead part of a Celtic tradition. According to Paul Robert Magocsi
, a Ukrainian Canadian
professor of history and political science at the University of Toronto
, cultural icons of the Cornish people include the Cornish engine
, Christmas carol
s, rugby football
and brass band
s. However, Cornish cultural tradition is most strongly associated with the people's most historical occupation, mining
, an aspect of Cornish history and culture that has influenced its cuisine, symbols and identity.
Cornwall has its own tradition of Christian saints, derived from Celtic extraction, that have given rise to localised dedications. Saint Piran
is the 5th century Christian abbot, supposedly of Irish
origin, who is patron saint of both tin miners and Cornwall. According to popular mythology, Piran, an Irish scholar who studied Christianity in Ancient Rome
was to be drowned in the Irish Sea
by the High Kings of Ireland
, but instead floated across to Perranporth
in Cornwall by the will of God to preach the ministry of Jesus
. Saint Piran's Flag
, a centred white cross on a black field, was described as the "Standard of Cornwall" in 1838 and was re-introduced by Celtic Revival
ists thereafter as a county flag of Cornwall. It has been seized upon by the Cornish people as a symbol of their identity, displayed on cars and flying from buildings including those of Cornwall Council. St Piran's Day is an annual patronal fete, and the pre-eminent Cornish festival
celebrating Cornish culture and history on March 5.
Cornish cuisine is a regional variety of British cuisine
, strongly rooted in a tradition of using local produce, which is used to create relatively simple dishes. Pre-eminent in Cornish cuisine is the pasty
(sometimes known as the Cornish pasty) a savoury dish consisting of diced beef, potato and usually either onion or turnip, enclosed within a pastry crust. The pasty evolved as a portable lunch for Cornish miners, the crust serving as a disposable handle that could be held by a miner's hand without soiling the filling. Fish was an important element of the Cornish diet, but international commercial fishing
was also well established by the 16th century, with tons of pilchards
exported from Cornwall to France
, Italy
and Spain
every year. Stargazy pie
is an occasional festive Cornish dish with the heads of fish standing on their tails, originally pilchards, piercing through a pastry crust. The saffron bun
, also known as the tea treat bun, is a sweet bread with its origins in Cornwall.
is derived from the Brythonic
branch of the Insular Celtic languages
. It is closely related to the Breton language
, and to a lesser extent shares commonalities with the Welsh language
, although they are not mutually understandable. The language functioned as a community language in Cornwall until a language shift
to the English language
was completed during the late 18th century. The demise of the Cornish language is attributed to English cultural influence, particularly the political and religious dominance of the English Reformation
and the Act of Uniformity 1549
which outlawed all church services within the Kingdom of England that were not in English. The exact date of the death of Cornish is unclear and disputed, but popularly it is claimed that the last monolingual Cornish speaker was Dolly Pentreath
, a Mousehole
resident who died in 1777.
The revival of Cornish began in 1904 when Henry Jenner
, a Celtic language enthusiast, published his book Handbook of the Cornish Language. He based his work on Cornish as it was spoken in the 18th century, although his pupil Robert Morton Nance
, with his orthography, Unified Cornish
, later steered the revival more towards the Middle Cornish that had been used in the 16th century, before the language became more heavily influenced by English. This set the tone for the next few decades; as the revival gained pace, learners of the language disagreed on which style of Cornish to use, and a number of competing orthographies—Unified Cornish, Unified Cornish Revised, Modern Cornish
, Kernewek Kemmyn
—were in use by the end of the 20th century. A standard written form
was agreed in 2008.
Cornish is a restored and living modern language
, but most of its speakers are enthusiasts, persons who have learned the language through private study. Cornish speakers are geographically dispersed, meaning there is no part of Cornwall where it is spoken as a community language. As of 2009, it is taught in fifty primary schools, although regular broadcast in Cornish is limited to a weekly bilingual programme on BBC Radio Cornwall
. Daily life in Cornwall therefore is conducted in the English language, albeit with some regional peculiarities.
Legends of the Fall
, a novella by American author Jim Harrison
, detailing the lives of a Cornish American
family in the early 20th century, contains several Cornish language terms. These were also included in the Academy award winning film of the same name starring Anthony Hopkins
as Col. William Ludlow and Brad Pitt
as Tristan Ludlow.
Cornwall was associated with the Matter of Britain
, a national myth recounting a legendary Celtic history of Brittonic warriors, including King Arthur
. The Matter of Britain was supported by texts such as the Historia Regum Britanniae
, a pseudohistorical
account of the history of the ancient Britons, written in the mid-12th century by Geoffrey of Monmouth
. The Historia Regum Britanniae chronicled the lives of legendary kings of the Britons in a narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans
founding the ancient British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 7th century forced the Celtic Britons to the west coast, namely Wales
and Cornwall. Although broadly thought of as a work of fiction, Geoffrey of Monmouth's work had a lasting effect upon the identity of the Cornish. His "historical construct" characterised the ancient Britons as heroes, which later helped Celtic revivalists to redefine Cornishness as an identity closely related to ancient heroic Celtic folklore.
Another strand of Cornish folklore is derived from tales of sea-faring pirates
and smugglers
who thrived in and around Cornwall from the early modern period through to the 19th century. Cornish pirates exploited both their knowledge of the Cornish coastline as well as its sheltered creeks and hidden anchorages. For many fishing villages, loot and contraband provided by pirates supported a strong and secretive underground economy
in Cornwall.
Legendary creature
s that appear in Cornish folklore include buccas, knockers and piskies
. Tales of these creatures are thought to have developed as supernatural
explanations for the frequent and deadly cave-in
s that occurred during 18th-century Cornish tin mining, or else a creation of the oxygen-starved minds of exhausted miners who returned from the underground.
Celtic cross
es, many dating from between the 7th and 15th centuries, are found in Cornwall and have been used as inspiration in modern and contemporary Cornish visual arts. In the 1780s, John Opie
was the first Cornish-born painter to gain widespread attention; his work was exhibited at the Royal Academy
and he was described by Joshua Reynolds
as "like Caravaggio
and Velázquez
in one". Artists who appreciated the quality of Cornwall's natural light
, such as J. M. W. Turner
, began to visit, with more following after the opening of the Great Western Railway
, including Whistler and Sickert
. Stanhope Forbes
and Frank Bramley
settled in Cornwall in the 1880s, establishing the Newlyn School
of painting en plein air
. By the 1920s, the ceramicist
Bernard Leach
was established at St Ives
, and the St Ives School
for abstract artists formed there, influenced by naive
painters such as Alfred Wallis
, and involving the work of Ben Nicholson
, his wife Barbara Hepworth
, Naum Gabo
and Patrick Heron
.
, a pagan
, animistic
faith, assumed to be led by Druid
s in full or in part. Early Christianity
is thought to have existed in Cornwall during the 1st century, but limited to individual travellers and visitors, possibly including Priscillian
, a Gallic
theologian who may have been exiled to the Isles of Scilly
. Celtic Christianity
was introduced to Cornwall in the year 520 by Saint Petroc
, a Brython from the kingdom of Glywysing, and other missionaries from Wales, as well as by Gaelic
monks and holy women from Ireland
; this "formative period" has left a legacy of granite high cross
monuments throughout Cornwall. Dedications to many different Cornish saints can also be traced to this period. In the Middle Ages, Roman Catholicism
was dominant in Cornwall, and even in the 17th century the Cornish were "fervently Roman Catholic", slow to accept the Protestant Reformation
, according to some scholars. The adoption of Anglicanism
was, eventually, near-universal in Cornwall and facilitated the anglicisation
of the Cornish people. A variety of dissenting congregations such as the Quakers and Baptists were to be found in certain districts. Through a combination of tours of Cornwall by John Wesley
, rural isolation and compatibility with Cornish tastes and sensibilities, Methodism
, an evangelical revival movement within the Church of England
, became the form of Christianity practised by the majority of the population all over Cornwall during the 19th century. During this time other kinds of Methodist churches appeared such as the Bible Christians and there were also Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic
revivals within the Church of England.
With its comparatively small, rural population, major contribution by the Cornish to national sport in the United Kingdom
has been limited. There are no teams affiliated to the Cornwall County Football Association
that play in the Football League of England and Wales
, and the Cornwall County Cricket Club
plays as one of the minor counties of English cricket
. Viewed as an "important identifier of ethnic affiliation", rugby union
has become a sport strongly tied with notions of Cornishness, and since the 20th century, rugby union in Cornwall has emerged as one of the most popular spectator and team sports in Cornwall, with professional Cornish rugby footballers being described as a "formidable force", "naturally independent, both in thought and deed, yet paradoxically staunch English patriots whose top players have represented England with pride and passion". In 1985, sports journalist Alan Gibson
made a direct connection between love of rugby in Cornwall and the ancient parish games of hurling and wrestling that existed for centuries before rugby officially began.
Cornish wrestling
(also known as Wrasslin') is a regional, folk style of grappling
or martial arts
. The Cornish Wrestling Association was formed in 1923, to standardise the rules of the sport and to promote Cornish wrestling throughout Cornwall and the world. Together with Cornish hurling
(a localised form of medieval football), Wrasslin' has been promoted as a distinctly Celtic game, tied closely with Cornish identity.
Surfing
was popularised in Cornwall during the late 20th century, and has since become readily associated with Cornishness. The waves around the Cornish coastline are created by low pressure systems from the Atlantic Ocean
which unleash powerful swells eastwards creating multiple, excellent surfing conditions in some parts of the coast of Cornwall. Newquay
, one of Britain's "premier surfing towns", regularly hosts world championship surfing events.
The politics of Cornwall
take place within a wider national political framework of a constitutional monarchy
, in which the United Kingdom's monarch
is head of state
and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
is the head of government
. Cornish politics are marked by a long tradition of Liberalism
.
Important historical institutions were the Duchy of Cornwall
and the Cornish Stannary Courts and Parliaments
. The Stannary court administered equity, through special laws and legal exemptions, for all matters relating to the tin mines and tin trade in Cornwall. Cornish miners were effectively exempt from the jurisdiction of the law courts at Westminster
, except "in such cases as should affect land, life or limb". The ancient privileges of the Stannary Courts and Parliaments were confirmed by successive Royal Charter
s in the Middle Ages, including those administered by Kings John
, Edward I
and Edward III of England
. As the tin mines of Cornwall lost their economic importance during the 18th and 19th centuries, so the Stannary institutions lost political power. The last Stannary parliament was held at Truro
in 1752, and continued, by adjournments, until 11 September 1753.
As in the rest of Great Britain, the Liberal Party
dominated Cornish politics during the 19th century, although Socialism
gained limited support in western Cornwall, and the Labour Party
won preference after World War I
. Nationalism
(or regionalism
) in Cornwall traces its roots to the Irish Home Rule bills of the late 19th century, and is represented by the Cornish self-government movement
, a political action group that is predominantly organised to promote Cornwall as the national homeland of the Cornish, campaign for devolution
, and win it the status as a fifth country within the UK
rather than outright separatism
. More "militant" variants of Cornish nationalism however claim that because of historical constitutional peculiarities regarding the status of Cornwall
, the law of the European Union does or should not have jurisdiction over Cornwall until Cornish sovereignty is recognised. Popularisation of Cornish nationalism is attributed to a Celtic cultural revival in Cornwall which itself begain with a newed interested in the Cornish language in the 1920s. The revival of the Cornish language encouraged a parallel revival of Celtic traditions, which by the 1970s had spurred on Cornish nationalism. The United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community
in 1973 prompted claims that the Cornish should be granted their own devolved
national assembly
—the Cornish Assembly
—comparable to that of the National Assembly for Wales
. Mebyon Kernow
is a left-wing political party
based in Cornwall, founded in 1951. Its main objective is attaining greater autonomy for Cornwall through the establishment of a legislative Cornish Assembly. As at 2009 Mebyon Kernow has no Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, and in the United Kingdom local elections, 2009
received 4 per cent of votes to elect councillors to Cornwall Council, behind the Conservative Party
(34 per cent), Liberal Democrats
(28 per cent), and Independents
(23 per cent)
Since the 2009 structural changes to local government in England
, Cornwall Council has been a unitary authority
, serving as the sole executive
, deliberative
, and legislative body responsible for local policy, setting council tax
, and allocating budgets.
Cornwall
Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...
, a county and Duchy in the south-west
South West England
South West England is one of the regions of England defined by the Government of the United Kingdom for statistical and other purposes. It is the largest such region in area, covering and comprising Bristol, Gloucestershire, Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly. ...
of the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
that is seen in some respects as distinct from England, having more in common with the other Celtic parts of the United Kingdom such as Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
, as well as with other Celtic nations
Celtic nations
The Celtic nations are territories in North-West Europe in which that area's own Celtic languages and some cultural traits have survived.The term "nation" is used in its original sense to mean a people who share a common traditional identity and culture and are identified with a traditional...
in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. For some, the Cornish represent a distinct ethnic group
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
within the UK, which can trace its roots to the ancient Britons
Britons (historical)
The Britons were the Celtic people culturally dominating Great Britain from the Iron Age through the Early Middle Ages. They spoke the Insular Celtic language known as British or Brythonic...
who inhabited southern and central Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
prior to the Roman conquest, and some in the county today continue to assert a distinct identity, separately or in addition to English or British identities. Cornish identity has been adopted by migrants into Cornwall, as well as by emigrant and descendant communities from Cornwall, the latter sometimes referred to as the Cornish diaspora.
Throughout classical antiquity
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
, the ancient Britons formed a series of tribes, cultures and identities in Great Britain; the Dumnonii
Dumnonii
The Dumnonii or Dumnones were a British Celtic tribe who inhabited Dumnonia, the area now known as Devon and Cornwall in the farther parts of the South West peninsula of Britain, from at least the Iron Age up to the early Saxon period...
and Cornovii
Cornovii (Cornish)
The Cornovii were a Celtic tribe who inhabited the far South West peninsula of Great Britain, during the Iron Age, Roman and post-Roman periods and gave their name to Cornwall or Kernow....
were the Celtic tribes who inhabited what was to become Cornwall during the Iron Age
Iron Age
The Iron Age is the archaeological period generally occurring after the Bronze Age, marked by the prevalent use of iron. The early period of the age is characterized by the widespread use of iron or steel. The adoption of such material coincided with other changes in society, including differing...
, Roman
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
and post-Roman
Sub-Roman Britain
Sub-Roman Britain is a term derived from an archaeological label for the material culture of Britain in Late Antiquity: the term "Sub-Roman" was invented to describe the potsherds in sites of the 5th century and the 6th century, initially with an implication of decay of locally-made wares from a...
periods. The name Cornwall and its demonym
Demonym
A demonym , also referred to as a gentilic, is a name for a resident of a locality. A demonym is usually – though not always – derived from the name of the locality; thus, the demonym for the people of England is English, and the demonym for the people of Italy is Italian, yet, in english, the one...
Cornish are derived from the Celtic Cornovii tribe. A watershed in the early history of Cornwall
History of Cornwall
The history of Cornwall begins with the pre-Roman inhabitants, including speakers of a Celtic language that would develop into Brythonic and Cornish. Cornwall was part of the territory of the tribe of the Dumnonii. After a period of Roman rule, Cornwall reverted to rule by independent...
was the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 5th to 6th centuries, which pushed Celtic culture to the northern and western fringes of Great Britain. The Battle of Deorham
Battle of Deorham
The Battle of Deorham or Dyrham was fought in 577 between the West Saxons under Ceawlin and Cuthwine and the Britons of the West Country. The location, Deorham, is usually taken to refer to Dyrham in South Gloucestershire. The battle was a major victory for the West Saxons, who took three important...
between the Britons and Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
resulted in a loss of landlinks
Partition (politics)
In politics, a partition is a change of political borders cutting through at least one territory considered a homeland by some community. That change is done primarily by diplomatic means, and use of military force is negligible....
between the Brittonic peoples of Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and Cornwall. The Cornish people, who shared the Brythonic language
Brythonic languages
The Brythonic or Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael...
with the Welsh, were referred to in the Old English language as the Westwalas meaning West Welsh.
The Cornish people and their Brythonic Cornish language
Cornish language
Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...
experienced a process of anglicisation
Anglicisation
Anglicisation, or anglicization , is the process of converting verbal or written elements of any other language into a form that is more comprehensible to an English speaker, or, more generally, of altering something such that it becomes English in form or character.The term most often refers to...
and attrition
Language shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...
during the Medieval
Middle Ages
The Middle Ages is a periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era. It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic, Medieval and Modern...
and early Modern Period
Early modern period
In history, the early modern period of modern history follows the late Middle Ages. Although the chronological limits of the period are open to debate, the timeframe spans the period after the late portion of the Middle Ages through the beginning of the Age of Revolutions...
s, so much so that Cornwall and the Cornish were considered components of England and the English. By the 18th century, and following the creation of the Kingdom of Great Britain
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...
, the Cornish language and identity had faded, replaced by the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
and British identity
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
. A Celtic revival
Celtic Revival
Celtic Revival covers a variety of movements and trends, mostly in the 19th and 20th centuries, which drew on the traditions of Celtic literature and Celtic art, or in fact more often what art historians call Insular art...
during the early-20th century enabled a cultural self-consciousness in Cornwall that revitalised the Cornish language and roused the Cornish to express a distinctly Celtic heritage.
In mid 2008, the population of Cornwall, including the Isles of Scilly
Isles of Scilly
The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The islands have had a unitary authority council since 1890, and are separate from the Cornwall unitary authority, but some services are combined with Cornwall and the islands are still part...
was estimated to be 534,300. For effectively all governmental, cartographical
Cartography
Cartography is the study and practice of making maps. Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.The fundamental problems of traditional cartography are to:*Set the map's...
and statistical purposes, Cornwall is a part of England, but the Cornish self-government movement
Cornish self-government movement
Cornish nationalism is an umbrella term that refers to a cultural, political and social movement based in Cornwall, the most southwestern part of the island of Great Britain, which has for centuries been administered as part of England, within the United Kingdom...
has called for greater recognition of Cornish culture, politics and language, challenging the constitutional status of Cornwall
Constitutional status of Cornwall
Cornwall is currently administered as a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England.However, a number of organisations and individuals question the constitutional basis for the administration of Cornwall as part of England, arguing that the Duchy Charters of 1337 place the governance of...
and urging that Cornish people be accorded greater status, exemplified by their request they be constituted as ethnically distinct in the United Kingdom Census 2011
United Kingdom Census 2011
The most recent census of the United Kingdom, known as the 2011 census, took place on 27 March 2011, a decade after the previous census. It was conducted on the same day in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to ensure coherence and consistency...
. The Cornish language was granted official recognition under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
The European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages is a European treaty adopted in 1992 under the auspices of the Council of Europe to protect and promote historical regional and minority languages in Europe...
in 2002, but the Cornish people "struggle for recognition as a national group distinct from the English" outside of Cornwall, and are not afforded protection under the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities was signed on February 1995 by 22 member States of the Council of Europe ....
.
Classification
Both geographic and historical factors distinguish the Cornish as an ethnic group. Throughout medieval and Early Modern BritainEarly Modern Britain
Early modern Britain is the history of the island of Great Britain, roughly corresponding to the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. Major historical events in Early Modern British history include the English Renaissance, the English Reformation and Scottish Reformation, the English Civil War, the...
, the Cornish were accorded the same status as the English
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
and Welsh
Welsh people
The Welsh people are an ethnic group and nation associated with Wales and the Welsh language.John Davies argues that the origin of the "Welsh nation" can be traced to the late 4th and early 5th centuries, following the Roman departure from Britain, although Brythonic Celtic languages seem to have...
; they were considered a separate race or nation
Nation
A nation may refer to a community of people who share a common language, culture, ethnicity, descent, and/or history. In this definition, a nation has no physical borders. However, it can also refer to people who share a common territory and government irrespective of their ethnic make-up...
, distinct from their neighbours, with their own language, society and customs. A process of Anglicisation
Anglicisation
Anglicisation, or anglicization , is the process of converting verbal or written elements of any other language into a form that is more comprehensible to an English speaker, or, more generally, of altering something such that it becomes English in form or character.The term most often refers to...
between 1485 and 1700 led to the Cornish adopting English language, culture and civic identity, a view reinforced by Cornish historian A. L. Rowse
A. L. Rowse
Alfred Leslie Rowse, CH, FBA , known professionally as A. L. Rowse and to friends and family as Leslie, was a British historian from Cornwall. He is perhaps best known for his work on Elizabethan England and his poetry about Cornwall. He was also a Shakespearean scholar and biographer...
who said they were gradually "absorbed into the mainstream of English life". Although "decidedly modern" and "largely retrospective" in its identity politics
Identity politics
Identity politics are political arguments that focus upon the self interest and perspectives of self-identified social interest groups and ways in which people's politics may be shaped by aspects of their identity through race, class, religion, sexual orientation or traditional dominance...
, Cornish and Celtic associations have advanced the notion of a distinct Cornish national and ethnic identity since the late 20th century. In the United Kingdom Census 2001
United Kingdom Census 2001
A nationwide census, known as Census 2001, was conducted in the United Kingdom on Sunday, 29 April 2001. This was the 20th UK Census and recorded a resident population of 58,789,194....
, despite no explicit "Cornish" option being available, approximately 34,000 people in Cornwall and 3,500 people elsewhere in the UK—a combined total equal to nearly 7 per cent of the population of Cornwall—identified themselves as ethnic Cornish by writing this in under the "other" ethnicity option. A campaign has called for the inclusion of a specific Cornish tick box in the United Kingdom Census 2011, but this has been resisted by the Office for National Statistics
Office for National Statistics
The Office for National Statistics is the executive office of the UK Statistics Authority, a non-ministerial department which reports directly to the Parliament of the United Kingdom.- Overview :...
.
The Cornish have been described as "a special case" in England, with an "ethnic rather than regional identity". Structural changes to the politics of the United Kingdom
Politics of the United Kingdom
The politics of the United Kingdom takes place within the framework of a constitutional monarchy, in which the Monarch is the head of state and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom is the head of government...
, particularly the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
and devolution
Devolution
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...
, have been the cited as the main stimulus to "a growing interest in Cornish identity and distinctiveness" in late-20th century Britain. The British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
are the citizens of the United Kingdom, a people which by convention consists of four national societies: the English, Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
/Northern Irish
People of Northern Ireland
Northern Irish people or people of Northern Ireland are "all persons born in Northern Ireland and having, at the time of their birth, at least one parent who is a British citizen, an Irish citizen or is otherwise entitled to reside in Northern Ireland without any restriction on their period of...
, Scots
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
and Welsh. The notion that the Cornish are to be classified as a nation comparable to the English, Irish, Scots and Welsh, "has practically vanished from the popular consciousness" outside Cornwall, and so, despite a "real and substantive" identity, the Cornish "struggle for recognition as a national group distinct from the English". The Cornish are not afforded protection under the Council of Europe
Council of Europe
The Council of Europe is an international organisation promoting co-operation between all countries of Europe in the areas of legal standards, human rights, democratic development, the rule of law and cultural co-operation...
's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities
The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities was signed on February 1995 by 22 member States of the Council of Europe ....
as Her Majesty's Government does not believe they meet the definition of a 'racial group' as defined in the Race Relations Act 1976
Race Relations Act 1976
The Race Relations Act 1976 was established by the Parliament of the United Kingdom to prevent discrimination on the grounds of race.Items that are covered include discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, nationality, ethnic and national origin in the fields of employment, the provision of...
. Furthermore, there are inhabitants of Cornwall who may have multiple political allegiances, adopting mixed, dual or hyphenated identities such as "Cornish first and British second", "Cornish and British and European", or, like Phil Vickery (a rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
prop for the England national rugby union team
England national rugby union team
The England national rugby union team represents England in rugby union. They compete in the annual Six Nations Championship with France, Ireland, Scotland, Italy, and Wales. They have won this championship on 26 occasions, 12 times winning the Grand Slam, making them the most successful team in...
and British and Irish Lions
British and Irish Lions
The British and Irish Lions is a rugby union team made up of players from England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales...
), describe themselves as "Cornish" and "English". Meanwhile another international rugby union player, Josh Matavesi
Josh Matavesi
Joshua Lewis Matavesi is a British rugby union footballer of Fijian descent. He is a utility back, and currently represents Racing Metro 92 in the Top 14, and Fiji in international rugby. He has personally said that he feels Cornish, not English, and identifies himself as "Cornish Fijian". He is...
, describes himself as Cornish-Fijian
Fijian people
Fijian people are the major indigenous people of the Fiji Islands, and live in an area informally called Melanesia. The Fijian people are believed to have arrived in Fiji from western Melanesia approximately 3,500 years ago, though the exact origins of the Fijian people are unknown...
and Cornish not English.
In November 2010 British prime-minister, David Cameron
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....
, said "I think Cornish national identity is very powerful" and that his government would "devolve a lot of power to Cornwall - that will go to the Cornish unitary authority."
2011 UK Census
A campaign for the inclusion of a Cornish tick-box in the nationality section of the 2011 censusUnited Kingdom Census 2011
The most recent census of the United Kingdom, known as the 2011 census, took place on 27 March 2011, a decade after the previous census. It was conducted on the same day in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to ensure coherence and consistency...
failed to win the support of parliament in 2009. As a consequence, posters were created by the census organisation and Cornwall Council which advised residents of how they could identify themselves as Cornish by writing it in the national identity, and ethnicity sections and record Cornish in the main language section. Additionally, people could record Cornwall as their country of birth.
Like other identities, Cornish has an allocated census code, (06) the same as for 2001, which will apply and will be counted throughout Britain. People were first able to record their ethnicity as Cornish in the 2001 UK Census, and some 37,000 people did so by writing it in.
Schools census (PLASC)
Since 2006 school children in Cornwall have been able to record themselves as ethnically Cornish on the annual Schools Census (PLASC). Since then the number identifying as Cornish has risen from 24% to 41%.2006: 24 percent
2007: 27 percent
2008: 30 percent
2009: 34 percent
2010: 37 percent
2011: 41 percent
Ancestral roots
Traditional accounts of Cornish ancestry teach that they are descended from the Celts making them distinct from the EnglishEnglish people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
, many (but not all) of whom are descended from the Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
who colonised Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
from their homelands in northern Europe
Northern Europe
Northern Europe is the northern part or region of Europe. Northern Europe typically refers to the seven countries in the northern part of the European subcontinent which includes Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Finland and Sweden...
and drove the Celts to Britain's western and northern fringes. However, some DNA research investigating the genetic history of the British Isles
Genetic history of the British Isles
The genetic history of the British Isles is the subject of research within the larger field of human population genetics. It has developed in parallel with DNA testing technologies capable of identifying genetic similarities and differences between populations...
suggests that three quarters of contemporary Y-chromosomes of British people
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
—including the Cornish—originate from hunter-gatherer
Hunter-gatherer
A hunter-gatherer or forage society is one in which most or all food is obtained from wild plants and animals, in contrast to agricultural societies which rely mainly on domesticated species. Hunting and gathering was the ancestral subsistence mode of Homo, and all modern humans were...
s who settled in Atlantic Europe
Atlantic Europe
Atlantic Europe is a geographical and anthropological term for the western portion of Europe which borders the Atlantic Ocean. The term may refer to the idea of Atlantic Europe as a cultural unit and/or as an biogeographical region....
during the Paleolithic
Paleolithic
The Paleolithic Age, Era or Period, is a prehistoric period of human history distinguished by the development of the most primitive stone tools discovered , and covers roughly 99% of human technological prehistory...
era, "after the melting of the ice caps but before the land broke away from the mainland and divided into islands". Archaeological
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
evidence supports pre-historic human habitation in Cornwall, at least as early as the Lower Paleolithic
Lower Paleolithic
The Lower Paleolithic is the earliest subdivision of the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age. It spans the time from around 2.5 million years ago when the first evidence of craft and use of stone tools by hominids appears in the current archaeological record, until around 300,000 years ago, spanning the...
. Although there was a separation of the British Isles
British Isles
The British Isles are a group of islands off the northwest coast of continental Europe that include the islands of Great Britain and Ireland and over six thousand smaller isles. There are two sovereign states located on the islands: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and...
from continental Europe
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
as a consequence of the last ice age
Ice age
An ice age or, more precisely, glacial age, is a generic geological period of long-term reduction in the temperature of the Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental ice sheets, polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers...
, genetic evidence indicates that the people of Great Britain broadly share a common ancestry with the Basque people
Basque people
The Basques as an ethnic group, primarily inhabit an area traditionally known as the Basque Country , a region that is located around the western end of the Pyrenees on the coast of the Bay of Biscay and straddles parts of north-central Spain and south-western France.The Basques are known in the...
who live in the Basque Country by the Pyrenees
Pyrenees
The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...
. On this basis, geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer
Stephen Oppenheimer
Stephen Oppenheimer is a British paediatrician, geneticist, and writer. He is a member of Green Templeton College, Oxford and an honorary fellow of Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, and carries out and publishes research in the fields of genetics and human prehistory.-Career:Oppenheimer...
suggests that the first settlers of Great Britain were unlikely to have spoken one of the Celtic languages
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
, but rather an ancient tongue related to the Basque language
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
. The next historical immigration to Great Britain
Historical immigration to Great Britain
Historical immigration to Great Britain concerns the inward movement of people, cultural and ethnic groups into island Great Britain before 1922, Immigration during and after 1922 is dealt with at the article Immigration to the United Kingdom .Modern humans first arrived in Great Britain during the...
occurred during the Neolithic
Neolithic
The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...
period, interpreted by Bryan Sykes
Bryan Sykes
Bryan Sykes is a former Professor of Human Genetics at the University of Oxford and a current Fellow of Wolfson College.Sykes published the first report on retrieving DNA from ancient bone...
—professor of human genetics
Human genetics
Human genetics describes the study of inheritance as it occurs in human beings. Human genetics encompasses a variety of overlapping fields including: classical genetics, cytogenetics, molecular genetics, biochemical genetics, genomics, population genetics, developmental genetics, clinical genetics,...
at the University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
—as the arrival of the Celts from the Iberian Peninsula
Iberian Peninsula
The Iberian Peninsula , sometimes called Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe and includes the modern-day sovereign states of Spain, Portugal and Andorra, as well as the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar...
, and the origin of Britain's and Ireland's Celtic tribes. It is these people who are considered the progenitors of the Cornish. A study by the Wellcome Trust
Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust was established in 1936 as an independent charity funding research to improve human and animal health. With an endowment of around £13.9 billion, it is the United Kingdom's largest non-governmental source of funds for biomedical research...
, led by Sir Walter Bodmer
Walter Bodmer
Sir Walter Bodmer is a German-born British human geneticist. His father being Jewish, the family left Germany in 1938 and settled in Manchester. Bodmer has developed models for population genetics and done work on the human leukocyte antigen system and the use of somatic cell hybrids for human...
and published on Channel 4's Faces of Britain in April 2007, showed that the Cornish people have a particular variant of the Melanocortin 1 receptor
Melanocortin 1 receptor
The melanocortin 1 receptor , also known as melanocyte-stimulating hormone receptor , melanin-activating peptide receptor, or melanotropin receptor, is a G protein-coupled receptor which binds to a class of pituitary peptide hormones known as the melanocortins, of which include adrenocorticotropic...
gene, identifying them as Celts more closely related to the Welsh than to the English. Within the areas of the UK studied, this gene appeared in 26 per cent of the population of Orkney, 23 per cent of Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
, 21 per cent of Wales, 16 per cent of Cornwall, 13 per cent of Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, and 11 per cent of North East England
North East England
North East England is one of the nine official regions of England. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Teesside . The only cities in the region are Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland...
.
Classical antiquity
Classical antiquity is a broad term for a long period of cultural history centered on the Mediterranean Sea, comprising the interlocking civilizations of ancient Greece and ancient Rome, collectively known as the Greco-Roman world...
the Celts spoke Celtic languages
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages are descended from Proto-Celtic, or "Common Celtic"; a branch of the greater Indo-European language family...
, and formed a series of tribes, cultures and identities, notably the Picts
Picts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
and Gaels
Gaels
The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
in the north and the Britons
Britons (historical)
The Britons were the Celtic people culturally dominating Great Britain from the Iron Age through the Early Middle Ages. They spoke the Insular Celtic language known as British or Brythonic...
in the south. The Britons were themselves a divided people; although they shared the Brythonic languages
Brythonic languages
The Brythonic or Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael...
, they were tribal, and divided into regional societies, and within them sub-groups. Examples of these tribal societies were the Brigantes
Brigantes
The Brigantes were a Celtic tribe who in pre-Roman times controlled the largest section of what would become Northern England, and a significant part of the Midlands. Their kingdom is sometimes called Brigantia, and it was centred in what was later known as Yorkshire...
in the north, and the Ordovices
Ordovices
The Ordovices were one of the Celtic tribes living in Great Britain, before the Roman invasion of Britain. Its tribal lands were located in present day Wales and England between the Silures to the south and the Deceangli to the north-east...
, the Demetae
Demetae
The Demetae were a Celtic people of Iron Age Britain who inhabited modern Pembrokeshire and Carmarthenshire in south-west Wales, and gave their name to the county of Dyfed.-Classical mention:...
, the Silures
Silures
The Silures were a powerful and warlike tribe of ancient Britain, occupying approximately the counties of Monmouthshire, Breconshire and Glamorganshire of present day South Wales; and possibly Gloucestershire and Herefordshire of present day England...
and the Deceangli
Deceangli
The Deceangli or Deceangi were one of the Celtic tribes living in Britain, prior to the Roman invasion of the island. The tribe lived mainly in what is now north-east Wales, though it is uncertain whether their territory covered only the modern counties of Flintshire, Denbighshire and part of...
in the west. In the extreme southwest, what was to become Cornwall, were the Dumnonii
Dumnonii
The Dumnonii or Dumnones were a British Celtic tribe who inhabited Dumnonia, the area now known as Devon and Cornwall in the farther parts of the South West peninsula of Britain, from at least the Iron Age up to the early Saxon period...
and Cornovii
Cornovii (Cornish)
The Cornovii were a Celtic tribe who inhabited the far South West peninsula of Great Britain, during the Iron Age, Roman and post-Roman periods and gave their name to Cornwall or Kernow....
, who lived in the Kingdom of Dumnonia
Dumnonia
Dumnonia is the Latinised name for the Brythonic kingdom in sub-Roman Britain between the late 4th and late 8th centuries, located in the farther parts of the south-west peninsula of Great Britain...
. The Roman conquest of Britain
Roman conquest of Britain
The Roman conquest of Britain was a gradual process, beginning effectively in AD 43 under Emperor Claudius, whose general Aulus Plautius served as first governor of Britannia. Great Britain had already frequently been the target of invasions, planned and actual, by forces of the Roman Republic and...
in the 1st century introduced Romans
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
to Britain, who upon their arrival initially recorded the Dumnonii, but later reported on the Cornovii, who were possibly a sub-group of the Dumnonii. Although the Romans colonised much of central and southern Britain, Dumnonia was "virtually unaffected" by the conquest; Roman rule had little or no impact on the region, meaning it could flourish as a semi- or fully independent Kingdom of Cornwall
Kingdom of Cornwall
The Kingdom of Cornwall was an independent polity in southwest Britain during the Early Middle Ages, roughly coterminous with the modern English county of Cornwall. During the sub-Roman and early medieval periods Cornwall was evidently part of the kingdom of Dumnonia, which included most of the...
which evidence shows was sometimes under the dominion of the kings of the Britons
King of the Britons
The Britons or Brythons were the Celtic-speaking people of what is now England, Wales and southern Scotland, whose ethnic identity is today maintained by the Welsh, Cornish and Bretons...
, and sometimes to have been governed by its own Dumnonian monarchy
Kings of Dumnonia
The kings of Dumnonia ruled the large Brythonic kingdom of Dumnonia in the south-west of Great Britain during the Sub-Roman and early medieval periods....
, either by the title of duke or king. This petty kingdom
Petty kingdom
A petty kingdom is one of a number of small kingdoms, described as minor or "petty" by contrast to an empire or unified kingdom that either preceded or succeeded it...
shared strong linguistic, political and cultural links with Brittany
Brittany
Brittany is a cultural and administrative region in the north-west of France. Previously a kingdom and then a duchy, Brittany was united to the Kingdom of France in 1532 as a province. Brittany has also been referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain...
, a peninsula on continental Europe
Continental Europe
Continental Europe, also referred to as mainland Europe or simply the Continent, is the continent of Europe, explicitly excluding European islands....
south of Cornwall inhabited by Britons; the Cornish and Breton language
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
s were nearly indistinguishable in this period, and both Cornwall and Brittany remain dotted with dedications to the same Celtic saint
Saint
A saint is a holy person. In various religions, saints are people who are believed to have exceptional holiness.In Christian usage, "saint" refers to any believer who is "in Christ", and in whom Christ dwells, whether in heaven or in earth...
s.
The Sack of Rome
Sack of Rome (410)
The Sack of Rome occurred on August 24, 410. The city was attacked by the Visigoths, led by Alaric I. At that time, Rome was no longer the capital of the Western Roman Empire, replaced in this position initially by Mediolanum and then later Ravenna. Nevertheless, the city of Rome retained a...
in the year 410 prompted a complete Roman departure from Britain, and Cornwall then experienced an influx of Celtic Christian
Celtic Christianity
Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages...
missionaries from Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
whom had a profound effect upon the early Cornish people, their culture, faith and architecture. The ensuing decline of the Roman Empire
Decline of the Roman Empire
The decline of the Roman Empire refers to the gradual societal collapse of the Western Roman Empire. Many theories of causality prevail, but most concern the disintegration of political, economic, military, and other social institutions, in tandem with foreign invasions and usurpers from within the...
encouraged the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain. The Angles
Angles
The Angles is a modern English term for a Germanic people who took their name from the ancestral cultural region of Angeln, a district located in Schleswig-Holstein, Germany...
, Jutes
Jutes
The Jutes, Iuti, or Iutæ were a Germanic people who, according to Bede, were one of the three most powerful Germanic peoples of their time, the other two being the Saxons and the Angles...
, Frisii
Frisii
The Frisii were an ancient Germanic tribe living in the low-lying region between the Zuiderzee and the River Ems. In the Germanic pre-Migration Period the Frisii and the related Chauci, Saxons, and Angles inhabited the Continental European coast from the Zuyder Zee to south Jutland...
and Saxons
Saxons
The Saxons were a confederation of Germanic tribes originating on the North German plain. The Saxons earliest known area of settlement is Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein...
, Germanic peoples
Germanic peoples
The Germanic peoples are an Indo-European ethno-linguistic group of Northern European origin, identified by their use of the Indo-European Germanic languages which diversified out of Proto-Germanic during the Pre-Roman Iron Age.Originating about 1800 BCE from the Corded Ware Culture on the North...
from northern Europe, established petty kingdoms and settled over much of what was to become England, and parts of southern Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
, progressively defeating the Britons in battle. The Saxons of the Kingdom of Wessex
Wessex
The Kingdom of Wessex or Kingdom of the West Saxons was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the West Saxons, in South West England, from the 6th century, until the emergence of a united English state in the 10th century, under the Wessex dynasty. It was to be an earldom after Canute the Great's conquest...
in particular were eradicating Celtic and Romano-British culture in Britain, expanding their territory westwards towards Cornwall. The Cornish were frequently embattled with the Wessex Saxons, who used their Germanic word walha
Walha
Walhaz is a reconstructed Proto-Germanic word, meaning "foreigner", "stranger", "Roman", "Romance-speaker", or "Celtic-speaker". The adjective derived from this word can be found in , Old High German walhisk, meaning "Romance", in Old English welisċ, wælisċ, wilisċ, meaning "Romano-British" and in...
(modern English: Welsh) meaning "stranger" or "foreigner", to describe their Cornish Briton opponents, later specifying them as the Westwalas (West Welsh) or Cornwalas (the Cornish). Conflict continued until King Athelstan of England
Athelstan of England
Athelstan , called the Glorious, was the King of England from 924 or 925 to 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder, grandson of Alfred the Great and nephew of Æthelflæd of Mercia...
agreed the River Tamar
River Tamar
The Tamar is a river in South West England, that forms most of the border between Devon and Cornwall . It is one of several British rivers whose ancient name is assumed to be derived from a prehistoric river word apparently meaning "dark flowing" and which it shares with the River Thames.The...
be the formal boundary between the English Saxons and the Cornish in the year 936, making Cornwall one of the last retreats of the Britons encouraging the development of a distinct Cornish identity; Brittonic culture in Britain became confined to Cornwall, North West England
North West England
North West England, informally known as The North West, is one of the nine official regions of England.North West England had a 2006 estimated population of 6,853,201 the third most populated region after London and the South East...
and Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
. Although a treaty was agreed, Anglo-Saxon political influence stretched westwards until around the late 10th century when "Cornwall was definitively incorporated into the Kingdom of England
Kingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
".
Anglicisation and rebellion
The Norman conquest of EnglandNorman conquest of England
The Norman conquest of England began on 28 September 1066 with the invasion of England by William, Duke of Normandy. William became known as William the Conqueror after his victory at the Battle of Hastings on 14 October 1066, defeating King Harold II of England...
, which began with an invasion by the troops of William, Duke of Normandy (later, King William I of England
William I of England
William I , also known as William the Conqueror , was the first Norman King of England from Christmas 1066 until his death. He was also Duke of Normandy from 3 July 1035 until his death, under the name William II...
) in 1066, resulted in the removal of the Anglo-Saxon derived monarchy, aristocracy, and clerical hierarchy and its replacement by Normans
Normans
The Normans were the people who gave their name to Normandy, a region in northern France. They were descended from Norse Viking conquerors of the territory and the native population of Frankish and Gallo-Roman stock...
, Scandinavian Vikings from northern France. The shire
Shire
A shire is a traditional term for a division of land, found in the United Kingdom and in Australia. In parts of Australia, a shire is an administrative unit, but it is not synonymous with "county" there, which is a land registration unit. Individually, or as a suffix in Scotland and in the far...
s of England were progressively divided amongst the companions of William I of England, who served as England's new nobility. The English would come to absorb the Normans, but the Cornish "vigorously resisted" their influence. At the time of the conquest, Cornwall was under the governance of Cadoc of Cornwall
Cadoc of Cornwall
According to William of Worcester, writing in the fifteenth century, Cadoc was a survivor of the Cornish royal line at the time of the Norman Conquest of England in 1066 and was appointed as the first Earl of Cornwall by William the Conqueror....
, the last Earl of Cornwall to be directly descended from the ancient monarchy of Cornwall. The Earldom of Cornwall had held devolved
Devolution
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...
semi-sovereignty
Sovereignty
Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a geographic area, such as a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided...
from England, but in 1067 was granted to Robert, Count of Mortain
Robert, Count of Mortain
Robert, Count of Mortain, 1st Earl of Cornwall was a Norman nobleman and the half-brother of William I of England. Robert was the son of Herluin de Conteville and Herleva of Falaise and was full brother to Odo of Bayeux. The exact year of Robert's birth is unknown Robert, Count of Mortain, 1st...
, King William I's half-brother, and ruled thereafter by an Anglo-Norman
Anglo-Norman
The Anglo-Normans were mainly the descendants of the Normans who ruled England following the Norman conquest by William the Conqueror in 1066. A small number of Normans were already settled in England prior to the conquest...
aristocracy; in the Domesday Book
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
, the record of the great survey of England completed in 1086, "virtually all" landowners in Cornwall "had English names, making it impossible to be sure who was Cornish and who was English by race". However, there was a persistent and "continuing differentiation" between the English and Cornish peoples during the Middle Ages, as evidenced by documents such as the 1173 charter
Charter
A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified...
of Truro
Truro
Truro is a city and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The city is the centre for administration, leisure and retail in Cornwall, with a population recorded in the 2001 census of 17,431. Truro urban statistical area, which includes parts of surrounding parishes, has a 2001 census...
which made explicit mention of both peoples as distinct.
The Earldom of Cornwall passed to various English nobles throughout the High Middle Ages
High Middle Ages
The High Middle Ages was the period of European history around the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries . The High Middle Ages were preceded by the Early Middle Ages and followed by the Late Middle Ages, which by convention end around 1500....
, but in 1337 the earldom was given the status of a duchy
Duchy
A duchy is a territory, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess.Some duchies were sovereign in areas that would become unified realms only during the Modern era . In contrast, others were subordinate districts of those kingdoms that unified either partially or completely during the Medieval era...
, and Edward, the Black Prince
Edward, the Black Prince
Edward of Woodstock, Prince of Wales, Duke of Cornwall, Prince of Aquitaine, KG was the eldest son of King Edward III of England and his wife Philippa of Hainault as well as father to King Richard II of England....
, the first son and heir of King Edward III of England
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...
, became the first Duke of Cornwall
Duke of Cornwall
The Duchy of Cornwall was the first duchy created in the peerage of England.The present Duke of Cornwall is The Prince of Wales, the eldest son of Queen Elizabeth II, the reigning British monarch .-History:...
as a means for the prince to raise his own capital. Large parts of Cornwall were owned by Edward, 1st Duke of Cornwall, and successive English Dukes of Cornwall became the largest landowners in Cornwall; The monarchy of England established two special administrative institutions in Cornwall, the first being the Duchy of Cornwall
Duchy of Cornwall
The Duchy of Cornwall is one of two royal duchies in England, the other being the Duchy of Lancaster. The eldest son of the reigning British monarch inherits the duchy and title of Duke of Cornwall at the time of his birth, or of his parent's succession to the throne. If the monarch has no son, the...
(one of only two in the Kingdom of England) and the second being the Cornish Stannary Courts and Parliaments
Stannary Courts and Parliaments
The Stannary Parliaments and Stannary Courts were legislative and legal institutions in Cornwall and in Devon , England. The Stannary Courts administered equity for the region's tin-miners and tin mining interests, and they were also courts of record for the towns dependent on the mines...
(which governed Cornwall's tin industry). These two institutions allowed "ordinary Cornish people to believe that they had been granted a unique constitutional status to reflect their unique cultural identity". However, the Duchy of Cornwall gradually lost its political autonomy from England, a state which became increasingly centralised in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, and by the early-Tudor period
Tudor period
The Tudor period usually refers to the period between 1485 and 1603, specifically in relation to the history of England. This coincides with the rule of the Tudor dynasty in England whose first monarch was Henry VII...
the Cornish had begun to see themselves as "a conquered people whose culture, liberties, and prosperity had been downgraded by the English". This view was exacerbated in the 1490s by heavy tax
Tax
To tax is to impose a financial charge or other levy upon a taxpayer by a state or the functional equivalent of a state such that failure to pay is punishable by law. Taxes are also imposed by many subnational entities...
ation imposed by King Henry VII of England
Henry VII of England
Henry VII was King of England and Lord of Ireland from his seizing the crown on 22 August 1485 until his death on 21 April 1509, as the first monarch of the House of Tudor....
upon the impoverished Cornish to raise funds for his military campaigns against King James IV of Scotland
James IV of Scotland
James IV was King of Scots from 11 June 1488 to his death. He is generally regarded as the most successful of the Stewart monarchs of Scotland, but his reign ended with the disastrous defeat at the Battle of Flodden Field, where he became the last monarch from not only Scotland, but also from all...
and Perkin Warbeck
Perkin Warbeck
Perkin Warbeck was a pretender to the English throne during the reign of King Henry VII of England. By claiming to be Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York, the younger son of King Edward IV, one of the Princes in the Tower, Warbeck was a significant threat to the newly established Tudor Dynasty,...
, as well as Henry VII's suspension of the privileges of the Cornish Stannaries. Having provided "more than their fair share of soldiers and sailors" for the conflict in northern England
Northern England
Northern England, also known as the North of England, the North or the North Country, is a cultural region of England. It is not an official government region, but rather an informal amalgamation of counties. The southern extent of the region is roughly the River Trent, while the North is bordered...
, and feeling aggrieved at "Cornwall's status as England's poorest county", a popular uprising
Popular revolt in late medieval Europe
Popular revolts in late medieval Europe were uprisings and rebellions by peasants in the countryside, or the bourgeois in towns, against nobles, abbots and kings during the upheavals of the 14th through early 16th centuries, part of a larger "Crisis of the Late Middle Ages"...
out of Cornwall ensued—the Cornish Rebellion of 1497
Cornish Rebellion of 1497
The Cornish Rebellion of 1497 was a popular uprising by the people of Cornwall in the far southwest of Britain. Its primary cause was a response of people to the raising of war taxes by King Henry VII on the impoverished Cornish, to raise money for a campaign against Scotland motivated by brief...
. The rebellion was initially a political march from St Keverne
St Keverne
St Keverne is a civil parish and village on the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall, United Kingdom.The Cornish Rebellion of 1497 started in St Keverne. The leader of the rebellion Michael An Gof was a blacksmith from St Keverne and is commemorated by a statue in the village...
to London led by Thomas Flamank
Thomas Flamank
Thomas Flamank was a lawyer from Cornwall who together with Michael An Gof led the Cornish Rebellion against taxes in 1497....
and Michael An Gof
Michael An Gof
Michael Joseph and Thomas Flamank were the leaders of the Cornish Rebellion of 1497....
, motivated by a "mixture of reasons"; to raise money for charity; to celebrate their community; to present their grievances to the Parliament of England
Parliament of England
The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. In 1066, William of Normandy introduced a feudal system, by which he sought the advice of a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics before making laws...
, but gathered pace across the West Country
West Country
The West Country is an informal term for the area of south western England roughly corresponding to the modern South West England government region. It is often defined to encompass the historic counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset and Somerset and the City of Bristol, while the counties of...
as a revolt against the king.
Cornish was the most widely spoken language west of the River Tamar until around the mid-1300s, when Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
began to be adopted as a common language of the Cornish people. As late as 1542 Andrew Boorde
Andrew Boorde
Andrew Boorde was an English traveller, physician and writer.Born at Boords Hill, Holms Dale, Sussex, he was educated at Oxford University, and was admitted a member of the Carthusian order while under age...
, an English traveller, physician and writer, wrote that in Cornwall were two languages, "Cornysshe" and "Englysshe", but that "there may be many men and women" in Cornwall who could not understand English. While the Norman language
Norman language
Norman is a Romance language and one of the Oïl languages. Norman can be classified as one of the northern Oïl languages along with Picard and Walloon...
was in use by much of the English aristocracy, Cornish was used as a lingua franca
Lingua franca
A lingua franca is a language systematically used to make communication possible between people not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both mother tongues.-Characteristics:"Lingua franca" is a functionally defined term, independent of the linguistic...
, particularly in the remote far west of Cornwall. Many Cornish landed gentry
Landed gentry
Landed gentry is a traditional British social class, consisting of land owners who could live entirely off rental income. Often they worked only in an administrative capacity looking after the management of their own lands....
chose mottos in the Cornish language for their coat of arms
Coat of arms
A coat of arms is a unique heraldic design on a shield or escutcheon or on a surcoat or tabard used to cover and protect armour and to identify the wearer. Thus the term is often stated as "coat-armour", because it was anciently displayed on the front of a coat of cloth...
, highlighting its socially high status. However, in 1549 and following the English Reformation
English Reformation
The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
, King Edward VI of England
Edward VI of England
Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...
commanded that the Book of Common Prayer
Book of Common Prayer
The Book of Common Prayer is the short title of a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion, as well as by the Continuing Anglican, "Anglican realignment" and other Anglican churches. The original book, published in 1549 , in the reign of Edward VI, was a product of the English...
, an Anglican
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
liturgical text in the English language, should be introduced to all churches in his kingdom, meaning that Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and Celtic customs and services should be discontinued. The Prayer Book Rebellion
Prayer Book Rebellion
The Prayer Book Rebellion, Prayer Book Revolt, Prayer Book Rising, Western Rising or Western Rebellion was a popular revolt in Cornwall and Devon, in 1549. In 1549 the Book of Common Prayer, presenting the theology of the English Reformation, was introduced...
was a militant revolt in Cornwall and parts of neighbouring Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...
against the Act of Uniformity 1549
Act of Uniformity 1549
The Act of Uniformity 1549 established The Book of Common Prayer as the sole legal form of worship in England...
, which outlawed all languages from church services apart from English, and is specified as a testament to the affection and loyalty the Cornish people held for the Cornish language. In the rebellion, separate risings occurred simultaneously in Bodmin
Bodmin
Bodmin is a civil parish and major town in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is situated in the centre of the county southwest of Bodmin Moor.The extent of the civil parish corresponds fairly closely to that of the town so is mostly urban in character...
in Corwall, and Sampford Courtenay
Sampford Courtenay
Sampford Courtenay is a village and civil parish in West Devon in England, most famous for being the place where the Western Rebellion, otherwise known as the Prayerbook rebellion, first started, and where the rebels made their final stand...
in Devon—which would both converge at Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...
, laying siege to the region's largest Protestant city. However, the rebellion was suppressed thanks largely to the aid of foreign mercenaries in a series of battles in which "hundreds were killed", effectively ending Cornish as the common language of the Cornish people. The Anglicanism of the Reformation served as a vehicle for Anglicisation in Cornwall; Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
had a lasting cultural effect upon the Cornish by way of linking Cornwall more closely with England, while lessening political and linguistic ties with the Bretons
Breton people
The Bretons are an ethnic group located in the region of Brittany in France. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Brythonic speakers who emigrated from southwestern Great Britain in waves from the 3rd to 6th century into the Armorican peninsula, subsequently named Brittany after them.The...
of Brittany.
The English Civil War
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
, a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians
Roundhead
"Roundhead" was the nickname given to the supporters of the Parliament during the English Civil War. Also known as Parliamentarians, they fought against King Charles I and his supporters, the Cavaliers , who claimed absolute power and the divine right of kings...
and Royalists
Cavalier
Cavalier was the name used by Parliamentarians for a Royalist supporter of King Charles I and son Charles II during the English Civil War, the Interregnum, and the Restoration...
, polarised the populations of England and Wales. However, Cornwall in the English Civil War
Cornwall in the English Civil War
Cornwall played a significant role in the English Civil War, being a Royalist enclave in the generally Parliamentarian south-west.-Civil War military actions in Cornwall and the South West:...
was a staunchly Royalist enclave, an "important focus of support for the Royalist cause". Cornish soldiers were used as scouts and spies during the war, for their language was not understood by English Parliamentarians. The peace that followed the close of the war led to a further shift to the English language by the Cornish people, which encouraged an influx of English people to Cornwall. By the mid-17th century the use of the Cornish language had retreated far enough west to prompt concern and investigation by antiquarians, such as William Scawen
William Scawen
William Scawen was a one of the pioneers in the revival of the Cornish Language in England. He was a politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1640 and fought for the Royalist cause in the English Civil War....
. As the Cornish language diminished the people of Cornwall underwent a process of English enculturation
Enculturation
Enculturation is the process by which a person learns the requirements of the culture by which he or she is surrounded, and acquires values and behaviours that are appropriate or necessary in that culture. As part of this process, the influences which limit, direct, or shape the individual include...
and assimilation
Cultural assimilation
Cultural assimilation is a socio-political response to demographic multi-ethnicity that supports or promotes the assimilation of ethnic minorities into the dominant culture. The term assimilation is often used with regard to immigrants and various ethnic groups who have settled in a new land. New...
, becoming "absorbed into the mainstream of English life".
Industry, revival and the modern period
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
had a major impact upon the Cornish people. Cornwall's economy was fully integrated into England's, and mining in Cornwall
Mining in Cornwall
Mining in Cornwall and Devon began in the early Bronze Age approximately 2,150 BC and ended with the South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall closing in 1998...
, always an important source of employment and stability of the Cornish, experienced a process of industrialisation
Industrialisation
Industrialization is the process of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one...
resulting in 30 per cent of Cornwall's adult population being employed by its mines. During this period, efforts were made by Cornish engineers to design steam engine
Steam engine
A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid.Steam engines are external combustion engines, where the working fluid is separate from the combustion products. Non-combustion heat sources such as solar power, nuclear power or geothermal energy may be...
s with which to power water pumps for Cornish mines thus aiding the extraction of mineral ore. Industrial scale tin and copper mining operations in Cornwall melded Cornish identity with engines and heavy industry, and Cornwall's leading mining engineer, Richard Trevithick
Richard Trevithick
Richard Trevithick was a British inventor and mining engineer from Cornwall. His most significant success was the high pressure steam engine and he also built the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive...
, became "as much a part of Cornwall's heritage as any legendary giant from its Celtic past". Trevithick's most significant success was a high-pressure steam engine used to pump water and refuse from mines, but he was also the builder of the first full-scale working railway steam locomotive
Steam locomotive
A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...
. On 21 February 1804, the world's first locomotive-hauled railway journey took place as Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway
Rail transport
Rail transport is a means of conveyance of passengers and goods by way of wheeled vehicles running on rail tracks. In contrast to road transport, where vehicles merely run on a prepared surface, rail vehicles are also directionally guided by the tracks they run on...
of the Penydarren
Penydarren
Penydarren Ironworks was the fourth of the great ironworks established at Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales.Built in 1784 by the brothers Samuel Homfray, Jeremiah Homfray, and Thomas Homfray, all sons of Francis Homfray of Stourbridge. Their father, Francis, for a time managed a nail warehouse there...
ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil
Merthyr Tydfil
Merthyr Tydfil is a town in Wales, with a population of about 30,000. Although once the largest town in Wales, it is now ranked as the 15th largest urban area in Wales. It also gives its name to a county borough, which has a population of around 55,000. It is located in the historic county of...
in Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
.
The construction of the Great Western Railway
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...
during the Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
allowed for an influx of tourists to Cornwall from across Great Britain. Well in to the Edwardian era and interwar period
Interwar period
Interwar period can refer to any period between two wars. The Interbellum is understood to be the period between the end of the Great War or First World War and the beginning of the Second World War in Europe....
, Cornwall was branded as a rural retreat, a "primitive land of magic and romance", and as an "earlier incarnation of Englishness, a place more English than an England ravaged by modernity". Cornwall, the United Kingdom's only region with a subtropical-like climate
Subtropics
The subtropics are the geographical and climatical zone of the Earth immediately north and south of the tropical zone, which is bounded by the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, at latitudes 23.5°N and 23.5°S...
, became a centre for English tourism
Tourism in England
Tourism plays a significant part in the economic life of England.-Cultural and heritage tourism:England's long history and pervasive culture spread worldwide through the English language and colonialism make England a popular tourist destination, particularly in London...
, its coastline dominated by resort town
Resort town
A resort town, sometimes called a resort city or resort destination, is a town or area where tourism or vacationing is a primary component of the local culture and economy...
s increasingly composed of bungalow
Bungalow
A bungalow is a type of house, with varying meanings across the world. Common features to many of these definitions include being detached, low-rise , and the use of verandahs...
s and villa
Villa
A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity,...
s. Tourists visiting Cornwall are called emmets by locals, a Cornish language word for insects, referring to the creatures that the visitors resemble when swarming Cornwall's resorts.
In the latter half of the 19th century Cornwall experienced rapid deindustrialisation, with the closure of mines in particular considered by the Cornish to be both an economic and cultural disaster. This, coupled with the rise of Romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism
Romantic nationalism is the form of nationalism in which the state derives its political legitimacy as an organic consequence of the unity of those it governs...
in Europe inspired and influenced a Celtic Revival
Celtic Revival
Celtic Revival covers a variety of movements and trends, mostly in the 19th and 20th centuries, which drew on the traditions of Celtic literature and Celtic art, or in fact more often what art historians call Insular art...
in Cornwall, a social, linguistic and artistic movement interested in Cornish medieval ethnology
Ethnology
Ethnology is the branch of anthropology that compares and analyzes the origins, distribution, technology, religion, language, and social structure of the ethnic, racial, and/or national divisions of humanity.-Scientific discipline:Compared to ethnography, the study of single groups through direct...
. This Revivalist upsurge investigated Cornwall's pre-industrial culture, using the Cornish language as the "principal badge of [Cornish] nationality and ethnic kinship”. The first effective revival of Cornish began in 1904 when Henry Jenner
Henry Jenner
Henry Jenner FSA was a British scholar of the Celtic languages, a Cornish cultural activist, and the chief originator of the Cornish language revival....
, a Celtic language enthusiast, published his book Handbook of the Cornish Language. His orthography, Unified Cornish
Unified Cornish
Unified Cornish is a variety of revived Cornish. Developed gradually by Morton Nance during and before the 1930s, it derived its name from its standardisation of the variant spellings of traditional Cornish MSS...
, was based on Cornish as it was spoken in the 18th century, although his pupil Robert Morton Nance
Robert Morton Nance
Robert Morton Nance was a leading authority on the Cornish language, nautical archaeologist, and joint founder of the Old Cornwall Society....
later steered the revival more towards the Middle Cornish that had been used in the 16th century, before the language became influenced by English.
The visit of King George IV to Scotland
Visit of King George IV to Scotland
The 1822 visit of King George IV to Scotland was the first visit of a reigning monarch to Scotland since 1650. Government ministers had pressed the King to bring forward a proposed visit to Scotland, to divert him from diplomatic intrigue at the Congress of Verona.The visit increased his popularity...
in 1822 reinvigorated Scottish national identity
Scottish national identity
Scottish national identity is a term referring to the sense of national identity and common culture of Scottish people and is shared by a considerable majority of the people of Scotland....
, melding it with romanticist notions of tartan
Tartan
Tartan is a pattern consisting of criss-crossed horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours. Tartans originated in woven wool, but now they are made in many other materials. Tartan is particularly associated with Scotland. Scottish kilts almost always have tartan patterns...
, kilt
Kilt
The kilt is a knee-length garment with pleats at the rear, originating in the traditional dress of men and boys in the Scottish Highlands of the 16th century. Since the 19th century it has become associated with the wider culture of Scotland in general, or with Celtic heritage even more broadly...
s and the Scottish Highlands
Scottish Highlands
The Highlands is an historic region of Scotland. The area is sometimes referred to as the "Scottish Highlands". It was culturally distinguishable from the Lowlands from the later Middle Ages into the modern period, when Lowland Scots replaced Scottish Gaelic throughout most of the Lowlands...
. As Pan-Celticism
Pan-Celticism
Pan-Celticism is the name given to various political and cultural movements and organisations that promote greater contact between the Celtic nations.-Types of Pan-Celticism:Pan-Celticism can operate on one or all of the following levels listed below:...
gathered pace in the early 20th century, Cornishman L. C. R. Duncombe-Jewell
L. C. R. Duncombe-Jewell
Louis Charles Richard Duncombe-Jewell , born Louis Charles Richard Jewell, was a soldier, special war correspondent of The Times and Morning Post, sportsman and sometimes poet, he was a champion of the Cornish language....
and the Cowethas Kelto-Kernuak (a Cornish language interest group) asserted the use of Cornish kilts and tartans as a "national dress ... common to all Celtic countries". In 1924 the Federation of Old Cornwall Societies
Federation of Old Cornwall Societies
The Federation of Old Cornwall Societies was formed in 1924, on the initiative of Robert Morton Nance, with the objective of collecting and maintaining "all those ancient things that make the spirit of Cornwall — its traditions, its old words and ways, and what remains to it of its Celtic language...
was formed to facilitate, preserve and maintain Celticity in Cornwall, followed by the similar Gorseth Kernow
Gorseth Kernow
Gorseth Kernow is a non-political Cornish organisation, which exists to maintain the national Celtic spirit of Cornwall in the United Kingdom.-History:...
in 1928, and the formation of the Cornish nationalist
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
political party Mebyon Kernow
Mebyon Kernow
Mebyon Kernow is a left-of-centre political party in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It primarily campaigns for devolution to Cornwall in the form of a Cornish Assembly, as well as social democracy and environmental protection.MK was formed as a pressure group in 1951, and contained as members activists...
in 1951. Increased interest and communication across the Celtic nations
Celtic nations
The Celtic nations are territories in North-West Europe in which that area's own Celtic languages and some cultural traits have survived.The term "nation" is used in its original sense to mean a people who share a common traditional identity and culture and are identified with a traditional...
in Celtic languages and culture during the 1960s and 1970s spurred on the popularisation of the Cornish self-government movement
Cornish self-government movement
Cornish nationalism is an umbrella term that refers to a cultural, political and social movement based in Cornwall, the most southwestern part of the island of Great Britain, which has for centuries been administered as part of England, within the United Kingdom...
. Since devolution
Devolution
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...
in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, enthusiasts for Cornish culture have pressed for the Cornish language to be taught formally in Cornish schools, while Cornish nationalists have demanded greater political autonomy for Cornwall, for example that it be constituted as the United Kingdom's fifth consistuent country
Countries of the United Kingdom
Countries of the United Kingdom is a term used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. These four countries together form the sovereign state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is also described as a country. The alternative terms, constituent...
with its own Cornish Assembly
Cornish Assembly
The Cornish Assembly is a proposed devolved regional assembly for Cornwall in the United Kingdom along the lines of the Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly.-Overview:...
.
Geographic distribution
The Cornish people are concentrated in Cornwall, but after the Age of DiscoveryAge of Discovery
The Age of Discovery, also known as the Age of Exploration and the Great Navigations , was a period in history starting in the early 15th century and continuing into the early 17th century during which Europeans engaged in intensive exploration of the world, establishing direct contacts with...
in the early modern period were involved in the British colonisation of the Americas and other transcontinental and transatlantic migrations
Transatlantic migrations
Transatlantic migration refers to the movement of people across the Atlantic Ocean in order to settle on the continents of North and South America. It usually refers to migrations after Christopher Columbus' voyage to the Americas in 1492...
. Initially, the number of migrants was comparatively small, with those who left Cornwall typically settling in North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
or else amongst the ports and plantation
Plantation
A plantation is a long artificially established forest, farm or estate, where crops are grown for sale, often in distant markets rather than for local on-site consumption...
s of the Caribbean
Caribbean
The Caribbean is a crescent-shaped group of islands more than 2,000 miles long separating the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea, to the west and south, from the Atlantic Ocean, to the east and north...
.
In the first half of the 19th century, the Cornish people were leaders in tin
Tin
Tin is a chemical element with the symbol Sn and atomic number 50. It is a main group metal in group 14 of the periodic table. Tin shows chemical similarity to both neighboring group 14 elements, germanium and lead and has two possible oxidation states, +2 and the slightly more stable +4...
and copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
smelting, while mining in Cornwall
Mining in Cornwall
Mining in Cornwall and Devon began in the early Bronze Age approximately 2,150 BC and ended with the South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall closing in 1998...
was the people's major occupation. Increased competition from Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, British Malaya
British Malaya
British Malaya loosely described a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the Island of Singapore that were brought under British control between the 18th and the 20th centuries...
and Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, coupled with the depletion of mineral deposits brought about an economic decline for Cornish mining lasting half a century, and prompting mass human migration
Human migration
Human migration is physical movement by humans from one area to another, sometimes over long distances or in large groups. Historically this movement was nomadic, often causing significant conflict with the indigenous population and their displacement or cultural assimilation. Only a few nomadic...
from Cornwall. In each decade from 1861 to 1901, "around 20% of the Cornish male population migrated abroad"—three times that of the average of England and Wales
England and Wales
England and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
—and totalling over a quarter of a million people lost to emigration between 1841 and 1901. There was a displacement of skilled Cornish engineers, farmers, merchants, miners and tradesmen, but their commercial and occupational expertise, particularly in hard rock mining, was highly valued by the communities they met. Within Great Britain
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, Cornish families were attracted from Cornwall to North East England
North East England
North East England is one of the nine official regions of England. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Teesside . The only cities in the region are Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland...
—particularly on Teesside
Teesside
Teesside is the name given to the conurbation in the north east of England made up of the towns of Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar, Billingham and surrounding settlements near the River Tees. It was also the name of a local government district between 1968 and 1974—the County Borough of...
—to partake in coal mining
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
as a means to earn wealth by using their mining skill. This has resulted in a concentration of Cornish names on and around Teesside that persists into the 21st century.
Large numbers of the 19th century Cornish emigrants eventually returned to Cornwall, whilst the rate of emigration from Cornwall declined after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. However, the global connections of the remaining Cornish diaspora, which is concentrated in English-speaking countries
Anglosphere
Anglosphere is a neologism which refers to those nations with English as the most common language. The term can be used more specifically to refer to those nations which share certain characteristics within their cultures based on a linguistic heritage, through being former British colonies...
such as Australia, Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, are "very strong". Their outreach has contributed to the international spread of Methodism
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
, a movement within Protestant
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
Christianity that was popular with the Cornish people at the time of their mass migration. "Cousin Jacks" is a nickname for the overseas Cornish, thought to derive from the practice of Cornishmen asking if job vacancies could be filled by their cousin named Jack in Cornwall.
Australia
From the beginning of Australia's colonial period until after the Second World War, people from the United Kingdom made up a large majority of people coming to Australia, meaning that many Australian-born people can trace their origins to Britain. The Cornish people in particular were actively encouraged to emigrate to Australia following the demise of Cornish miningMining in Cornwall
Mining in Cornwall and Devon began in the early Bronze Age approximately 2,150 BC and ended with the South Crofty tin mine in Cornwall closing in 1998...
in the 19th century. A "vigorous recruiting campaign" was launched to encourage the Cornish to aid with mining in Australia
Mining in Australia
Mining in Australia is a significant primary industry and contributor to the Australian economy. Historically, mining booms have also encouraged immigration to Australia. Many different ores and minerals are mined throughout the country.-History:...
because of their experience and expertise. Free passage to South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
in particular was granted to hundreds of Cornish miners and their families, so much so, that a large Cornish community gathered in Australia's Copper Coast
Copper Coast
*This article is about a region in Australia. For coast of County Waterford, Ireland, see Copper Coast .Copper Coast is a region of South Australia situated in Northern Yorke Peninsula and comprising the towns of Wallaroo, Kadina, Moonta, Paskeville and Port Hughes. The area approximately bounded...
, and South Australia's Yorke Peninsula
Yorke Peninsula
The Yorke Peninsula is a peninsula located north-west and west of Adelaide in South Australia, Australia, between Spencer Gulf on the west and Gulf St Vincent on the east. It has geographic coordinates of...
became known as "Little Cornwall”. It has been estimated between 1837 and 1840, 15 per cent of all assisted migrants to South Australia were Cornish.
Cornish settlement impacted upon social, cultural and religious life throughout the history of South Australia
History of South Australia
The history of South Australia refers to the history of the Australian State of South Australia and its preceding Indigenous and British colonial societies. Aboriginal Australians have lived in South Australia for tens of thousands of years, while British colonists arrived in the 19th century to...
. Cornish identity was embraced strongly in the Yorke Peninsula, but also in the more outlying mining towns of Kapunda and Burra
Burra, South Australia
Burra is a pastoral centre and historic tourist town in the mid-north of South Australia. It lies east of the Clare Valley in the Bald Hills range, part of the northern Mount Lofty Ranges, and on Burra Creek. The town began as a single company mining township that, by 1851, was a set of townships ...
, where Cornish miners constituted a sizeable community. Methodism
Methodism
Methodism is a movement of Protestant Christianity represented by a number of denominations and organizations, claiming a total of approximately seventy million adherents worldwide. The movement traces its roots to John Wesley's evangelistic revival movement within Anglicanism. His younger brother...
, was the main form of religious practice for the Cornish. Methodist sensibilities were held with strong conviction by the migrant Cornish in a direct rivalry with Catholic Irish people
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
in Australia. The Kernewek Lowender
Kernewek Lowender
The Kernewek Lowender is a Cornish-themed biennial festival held in the Copper Coast towns ofKadina, Moonta and Wallaroo on Yorke Peninsula, South Australia....
is the largest Cornish festival in the world, held in the Kadina
Kadina, South Australia
Kadina is a town located on the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia, approximately 144 kilometres north-northwest of the state capital of Adelaide. The largest town of the Peninsula, Kadina is one of the three Copper Triangle towns famous for their shared copper mining history...
, Moonta
Moonta, South Australia
Moonta is a town located on the Yorke Peninsula of South Australia, 165 kilometres north-northwest of the state capital of Adelaide. It is one of three towns known as the Copper Coast or "Little Cornwall" for their shared copper mining history....
and Wallaroo
Wallaroo, South Australia
Wallaroo is a port town on the western side of Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, 160 kilometres north-northwest of Adelaide. It is one of the three Copper Triangle towns famed for their historic shared copper mining industry, and known together as "Little Cornwall", the other two being Kadina ...
towns on the Yorke Peninsula, which attracts tens of thousands of visitors bi-annually.
Canada
European fishing ventures in and around Newfoundland during the 16th century were the earliest Cornish activity in what was to become Canada. However, permanent settlement by the Cornish across the Atlantic OceanAtlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
was rare until at least the 19th century. The British colonisation of the Americas encouraged additional migration of the Cornish to the Canadas
The Canadas
The Canadas is the collective name for Upper Canada and Lower Canada, two British colonies in Canada. They were both created by the Constitutional Act of 1791 and abolished in 1841 with the union of Upper and Lower Canada....
, particularly by those who served in Great Britain's Royal Navy
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...
. The creation of the colony of British North America
British North America
British North America is a historical term. It consisted of the colonies and territories of the British Empire in continental North America after the end of the American Revolutionary War and the recognition of American independence in 1783.At the start of the Revolutionary War in 1775 the British...
spurred more people from Cornwall to settle in North America; they were registered as English migrants. Many Cornish (and other West Country) immigrants who had been agricultural labourers settled in an area of what is now South Central Ontario in what were the counties of Northumberland, Durham and Ontario, ranging from the towns of Port Hope and Cobourg in the east, to Whitby in the west and to the north ends of those counties. (Source:
Encyclopedia of Canada's peoples By Paul R. Magocsi, Multicultural History Society of Ontario)
Mexico
Falmouth, Cornwall
Falmouth is a town, civil parish and port on the River Fal on the south coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It has a total resident population of 21,635.Falmouth is the terminus of the A39, which begins some 200 miles away in Bath, Somerset....
for Mineral del Monte
Mineral del Monte
Mineral del Monte is a small town and one of the 84 municipalities of Hidalgo, in central-eastern Mexico, lying at an altitude of 2700 metres ....
in central Mexico
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
with 1500 tonnes (1,476.3 LT) of mining machinery with which to apply their mining skill and technologies to resuscitate Mexico's ailing silver mining
Silver mining
Silver mining refers to the resource extraction of the precious metal element silver by mining.-History:Silver has been known since ancient times. It is mentioned in the Book of Genesis, and slag heaps found in Asia Minor and on the islands of the Aegean Sea indicate that silver was being separated...
industry after the neglect caused by the Mexican War of Independence
Mexican War of Independence
The Mexican War of Independence was an armed conflict between the people of Mexico and the Spanish colonial authorities which started on 16 September 1810. The movement, which became known as the Mexican War of Independence, was led by Mexican-born Spaniards, Mestizos and Amerindians who sought...
. Following their sea voyage they attempted to dock at Veracruz
Veracruz, Veracruz
Veracruz, officially known as Heroica Veracruz, is a major port city and municipality on the Gulf of Mexico in the Mexican state of Veracruz. The city is located in the central part of the state. It is located along Federal Highway 140 from the state capital Xalapa, and is the state's most...
but were forced away by the Spanish
Spanish people
The Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
to a beach at Mocambo from where they hauled their machinery through jungle and swamp to Santa Fe. During this haul through the jungle, the Cornishmen and their Mexican helpers fell victim to yellow fever
Yellow fever
Yellow fever is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease. The virus is a 40 to 50 nm enveloped RNA virus with positive sense of the Flaviviridae family....
, resulting in 30 Cornish and 100 Mexican fatalities. The fever forced the survivors to abandon their equipment and head inland up into the mountains to Xalapa to try and escape the mosquitos for three months, until the end of the rainy season. Once the rainy season closed the Cornish and Mexican miners continued their 250 miles (402 km) "Great Trek" to Mineral del Monte, transporting their machinery to an altitude of 10000 feet (3,048 m) above sea level and arriving at their destination on 1 May 1826. Following their arrival, the Cornish community flourished and stayed in central Mexico until the Mexican Revolution
Mexican Revolution
The Mexican Revolution was a major armed struggle that started in 1910, with an uprising led by Francisco I. Madero against longtime autocrat Porfirio Díaz. The Revolution was characterized by several socialist, liberal, anarchist, populist, and agrarianist movements. Over time the Revolution...
in 1910. Although the Cornish community in Mexico broadly returned to Cornwall, they left a cultural legacy; Cornish pasties, Cornish mining museums and a Cornish Mexican Cultural Society are all part of the local heritage and tradition in and around Mineral del Monte.
South Africa
The Witwatersrand Gold RushWitwatersrand Gold Rush
The Witwatersrand Gold Rush was a gold rush in 1886 that led to the establishment of Johannesburg, South Africa. It was part of the Mineral Revolution....
of 1886 encouraged large numbers of Cornish miners to migrate to the South African Republic
South African Republic
The South African Republic , often informally known as the Transvaal Republic, was an independent Boer-ruled country in Southern Africa during the second half of the 19th century. Not to be confused with the present-day Republic of South Africa, it occupied the area later known as the South African...
. Although an international
International
----International mostly means something that involves more than one country. The term international as a word means involvement of, interaction between or encompassing more than one nation, or generally beyond national boundaries...
gold rush, the Cornish overwhelmingly formed the skilled labour force in the Witwatersrand
Witwatersrand
The Witwatersrand is a low, sedimentary range of hills, at an elevation of 1700–1800 metres above sea-level, which runs in an east-west direction through Gauteng in South Africa. The word in Afrikaans means "the ridge of white waters". Geologically it is complex, but the principal formations...
, until the outbreak of the Second Boer War
Second Boer War
The Second Boer War was fought from 11 October 1899 until 31 May 1902 between the British Empire and the Afrikaans-speaking Dutch settlers of two independent Boer republics, the South African Republic and the Orange Free State...
prompted a retreat.
United States
The discovery of lead ore and copperCopper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
in North America prompted an influx of Cornish miners to the continent, particularly around the Upper Mississippi River
Upper Mississippi River
The Upper Mississippi River is the portion of the Mississippi River upstream of Cairo, Illinois, United States. From the headwaters at Lake Itasca, Minnesota, the river flows approximately 2000 kilometers to Cairo, where it is joined by the Ohio River to form the Lower Mississippi...
. By the early 19th century Cornish people were present in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan
Upper Peninsula of Michigan
The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is the northern of the two major land masses that make up the U.S. state of Michigan. It is commonly referred to as the Upper Peninsula, the U.P., or Upper Michigan. It is also known as the land "above the Bridge" linking the two peninsulas. The peninsula is bounded...
—particularly the mining town of Ishpeming
Ishpeming, Michigan
Ishpeming is a city in Marquette County in the Upper Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 6,686 at the 2000 census. This is down from a higher population in the 1950s and 1960s when the economically supportive iron ore mines had a much higher employment level...
. Additional waves of Cornish migrants followed the California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
of the mid-19th century; in the 1890s it was estimated that in California's Grass Valley
Grass Valley, California
-2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Grass Valley had a population of 12,860. The population density was 2,711.3 people per square mile . The racial makeup of Grass Valley was 11,493 White, 46 African American, 208 Native American, 188 Asian, 9 Pacific Islander, 419 from other...
, over 60 per cent of the population was Cornish. It has a tradition of carols
Carol (music)
A carol is a festive song, generally religious but not necessarily connected with church worship, and often with a dance-like or popular character....
stemming from the Cornish who settled the area as gold miners in the 19th century. The carols have become “the identity of the town”, some of the members of the Grass Valley Cornish Carol Choir are descendents of the original Cornish settlers.
Most migratory Cornish to the United States were classified as English or British, meaning that the precise number of Cornish American
Cornish American
Cornish Americans are citizens of the United States who describe themselves as having Cornish ancestry. Cornish ancestry is not recognised on the United States Census, although the Cornish people are recognised as a separate ethnic group and national identity for the United Kingdom Census...
s is difficult to estimate. The aggregate number of immigrants from Cornwall to the United States before World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
is suggested to be around 100,000.
Culture
Culture of Cornwall
The culture of Cornwall forms part of the culture of the United Kingdom, but has some distinct customs, traditions and peculiarities. Cornwall, a non-metropolitan and ceremonial county of England, a duchy, and a Celtic nation, has many strong local traditions...
has been attributed to Cornwall's geographic isolation. Contemporaneously, the underlying notion of Cornish culture is that it is distinct from the culture of England
Culture of England
The culture of England refers to the idiosyncratic cultural norms of England and the English people. Because of England's dominant position within the United Kingdom in terms of population, English culture is often difficult to differentiate from the culture of the United Kingdom as a whole...
, despite its anglicisation
Anglicisation
Anglicisation, or anglicization , is the process of converting verbal or written elements of any other language into a form that is more comprehensible to an English speaker, or, more generally, of altering something such that it becomes English in form or character.The term most often refers to...
, and that it is instead part of a Celtic tradition. According to Paul Robert Magocsi
Paul Robert Magocsi
Paul Robert Magocsi is an American professor of history, political science, and Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto. He has been with the University since 1980, and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in 1996...
, a Ukrainian Canadian
Ukrainian Canadian
A Ukrainian Canadian is a person of Ukrainian descent or origin who was born in or immigrated to Canada. In 2006, there were an estimated 1,209,085 persons residing in Canada of Ukrainian origin, making them Canada's ninth largest ethnic group; and giving Canada the world's third-largest...
professor of history and political science at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
, cultural icons of the Cornish people include the Cornish engine
Cornish engine
A Cornish engine is a type of steam engine developed in Cornwall, England, mainly for pumping water from a mine. It is a form of beam engine that uses steam at a higher pressure than the earlier engines designed by James Watt...
, Christmas carol
Christmas carol
A Christmas carol is a carol whose lyrics are on the theme of Christmas or the winter season in general and which are traditionally sung in the period before Christmas.-History:...
s, rugby football
Rugby football
Rugby football is a style of football named after Rugby School in the United Kingdom. It is seen most prominently in two current sports, rugby league and rugby union.-History:...
and brass band
Brass band
A brass band is a musical ensemble generally consisting entirely of brass instruments, most often with a percussion section. Ensembles that include brass and woodwind instruments can in certain traditions also be termed brass bands , but are usually more correctly termed military bands, concert...
s. However, Cornish cultural tradition is most strongly associated with the people's most historical occupation, mining
Mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the earth, from an ore body, vein or seam. The term also includes the removal of soil. Materials recovered by mining include base metals, precious metals, iron, uranium, coal, diamonds, limestone, oil shale, rock...
, an aspect of Cornish history and culture that has influenced its cuisine, symbols and identity.
Cornwall has its own tradition of Christian saints, derived from Celtic extraction, that have given rise to localised dedications. Saint Piran
Saint Piran
Saint Piran or Perran is an early 6th century Cornish abbot and saint, supposedly of Irish origin....
is the 5th century Christian abbot, supposedly of Irish
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
origin, who is patron saint of both tin miners and Cornwall. According to popular mythology, Piran, an Irish scholar who studied Christianity in Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome
Ancient Rome was a thriving civilization that grew on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 8th century BC. Located along the Mediterranean Sea and centered on the city of Rome, it expanded to one of the largest empires in the ancient world....
was to be drowned in the Irish Sea
Irish Sea
The Irish Sea separates the islands of Ireland and Great Britain. It is connected to the Celtic Sea in the south by St George's Channel, and to the Atlantic Ocean in the north by the North Channel. Anglesey is the largest island within the Irish Sea, followed by the Isle of Man...
by the High Kings of Ireland
High King of Ireland
The High Kings of Ireland were sometimes historical and sometimes legendary figures who had, or who are claimed to have had, lordship over the whole of Ireland. Medieval and early modern Irish literature portrays an almost unbroken sequence of High Kings, ruling from Tara over a hierarchy of...
, but instead floated across to Perranporth
Perranporth
Perranporth is a small seaside resort on the north coast of Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. It is southwest of Newquay and northwest of Truro. Perranporth and its long beach face the Atlantic Ocean....
in Cornwall by the will of God to preach the ministry of Jesus
Ministry of Jesus
In the Christian gospels, the Ministry of Jesus begins with his Baptism in the countryside of Judea, near the River Jordan and ends in Jerusalem, following the Last Supper with his disciples. The Gospel of Luke states that Jesus was "about 30 years of age" at the start of his ministry...
. Saint Piran's Flag
Saint Piran's Flag
Saint Piran's Flag is the flag of Cornwall, in the United Kingdom. The earliest known description of the flag as the Standard of Cornwall was written in 1838. It is used by Cornish people as a symbol of identity. It is a white cross on a black background....
, a centred white cross on a black field, was described as the "Standard of Cornwall" in 1838 and was re-introduced by Celtic Revival
Celtic Revival
Celtic Revival covers a variety of movements and trends, mostly in the 19th and 20th centuries, which drew on the traditions of Celtic literature and Celtic art, or in fact more often what art historians call Insular art...
ists thereafter as a county flag of Cornwall. It has been seized upon by the Cornish people as a symbol of their identity, displayed on cars and flying from buildings including those of Cornwall Council. St Piran's Day is an annual patronal fete, and the pre-eminent Cornish festival
Cornish festivals
The cultural calendar of Cornwall is punctuated by numerous historic and community festivals and celebrations. In particular there are strong links between parishes and their patronal feast days...
celebrating Cornish culture and history on March 5.
Cuisine
British cuisine
English cuisine encompasses the cooking styles, traditions and recipes associated with England. It has distinctive attributes of its own, but also shares much with wider British cuisine, largely due to the importation of ingredients and ideas from places such as North America, China, and India...
, strongly rooted in a tradition of using local produce, which is used to create relatively simple dishes. Pre-eminent in Cornish cuisine is the pasty
Pasty
A pasty , sometimes known as a pastie or British pasty in the United States, is a filled pastry case, associated in particular with Cornwall in Great Britain. It is made by placing the uncooked filling on a flat pastry circle, and folding it to wrap the filling, crimping the edge at the side or top...
(sometimes known as the Cornish pasty) a savoury dish consisting of diced beef, potato and usually either onion or turnip, enclosed within a pastry crust. The pasty evolved as a portable lunch for Cornish miners, the crust serving as a disposable handle that could be held by a miner's hand without soiling the filling. Fish was an important element of the Cornish diet, but international commercial fishing
Commercial fishing
Commercial fishing is the activity of catching fish and other seafood for commercial profit, mostly from wild fisheries. It provides a large quantity of food to many countries around the world, but those who practice it as an industry must often pursue fish far into the ocean under adverse conditions...
was also well established by the 16th century, with tons of pilchards
Sardine
Sardines, or pilchards, are several types of small, oily fish related to herrings, family Clupeidae. Sardines are named after the Mediterranean island of Sardinia, around which they were once abundant....
exported from Cornwall to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
and Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
every year. Stargazy pie
Stargazy pie
Stargazy pie is a Cornish dish made of baked pilchards, along with eggs and potatoes, covered with a pastry crust. Although there are a few variations with different fish being used, the unique feature of stargazy pie is fish heads protruding through the crust, so that they appear to be gazing...
is an occasional festive Cornish dish with the heads of fish standing on their tails, originally pilchards, piercing through a pastry crust. The saffron bun
Saffron bun
A saffron bun, in Swedish lussebulle or lussekatt, is a rich yeast dough bun that is flavoured with saffron and cinnamon or nutmeg and contains currants. In Sweden, no cinnamon or nutmeg is used in the bun, and raisins are used instead of currants. The buns are baked into many traditional shapes,...
, also known as the tea treat bun, is a sweet bread with its origins in Cornwall.
Language
The Cornish languageCornish language
Cornish is a Brythonic Celtic language and a recognised minority language of the United Kingdom. Along with Welsh and Breton, it is directly descended from the ancient British language spoken throughout much of Britain before the English language came to dominate...
is derived from the Brythonic
Brythonic languages
The Brythonic or Brittonic languages form one of the two branches of the Insular Celtic language family, the other being Goidelic. The name Brythonic was derived by Welsh Celticist John Rhys from the Welsh word Brython, meaning an indigenous Briton as opposed to an Anglo-Saxon or Gael...
branch of the Insular Celtic languages
Insular Celtic languages
Insular Celtic languages are those Celtic languages that originated in the British Isles, in contrast to the Continental Celtic languages of mainland Europe and Anatolia. All surviving Celtic languages are from the Insular Celtic group; the Continental Celtic languages are extinct...
. It is closely related to the Breton language
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
, and to a lesser extent shares commonalities with the Welsh language
Welsh language
Welsh is a member of the Brythonic branch of the Celtic languages spoken natively in Wales, by some along the Welsh border in England, and in Y Wladfa...
, although they are not mutually understandable. The language functioned as a community language in Cornwall until a language shift
Language shift
Language shift, sometimes referred to as language transfer or language replacement or assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak...
to the English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
was completed during the late 18th century. The demise of the Cornish language is attributed to English cultural influence, particularly the political and religious dominance of the English Reformation
English Reformation
The English Reformation was the series of events in 16th-century England by which the Church of England broke away from the authority of the Pope and the Roman Catholic Church....
and the Act of Uniformity 1549
Act of Uniformity 1549
The Act of Uniformity 1549 established The Book of Common Prayer as the sole legal form of worship in England...
which outlawed all church services within the Kingdom of England that were not in English. The exact date of the death of Cornish is unclear and disputed, but popularly it is claimed that the last monolingual Cornish speaker was Dolly Pentreath
Dolly Pentreath
Dolly Pentreath, or Dorothy Pentreath was probably the last fluent native speaker of the Cornish language, prior to its revival in 1904 and the subsequent small number of children brought up as bilingual native speakers of revived Cornish.She is often stated to have been the last monoglot speaker...
, a Mousehole
Mousehole
Mousehole is a village and fishing port in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is situated approximately 2½ miles south of Penzance on the shore of Mount's Bay.The village is in the civil parish of Penzance...
resident who died in 1777.
The revival of Cornish began in 1904 when Henry Jenner
Henry Jenner
Henry Jenner FSA was a British scholar of the Celtic languages, a Cornish cultural activist, and the chief originator of the Cornish language revival....
, a Celtic language enthusiast, published his book Handbook of the Cornish Language. He based his work on Cornish as it was spoken in the 18th century, although his pupil Robert Morton Nance
Robert Morton Nance
Robert Morton Nance was a leading authority on the Cornish language, nautical archaeologist, and joint founder of the Old Cornwall Society....
, with his orthography, Unified Cornish
Unified Cornish
Unified Cornish is a variety of revived Cornish. Developed gradually by Morton Nance during and before the 1930s, it derived its name from its standardisation of the variant spellings of traditional Cornish MSS...
, later steered the revival more towards the Middle Cornish that had been used in the 16th century, before the language became more heavily influenced by English. This set the tone for the next few decades; as the revival gained pace, learners of the language disagreed on which style of Cornish to use, and a number of competing orthographies—Unified Cornish, Unified Cornish Revised, Modern Cornish
Modern Cornish
Modern Cornish is a variety of the revived Cornish language. It is sometimes called Revived Late Cornish or Kernuack Dewethas, to distinguish it from other forms of contemporary revived Cornish....
, Kernewek Kemmyn
Kernewek Kemmyn
Kernewek Kemmyn is a variety of the revived Cornish language.Kernewek Kemmyn was developed, mainly by Ken George, from Unified Cornish in 1986. It takes much of its inspiration from medieval sources, particularly Cornish passion plays, as well as Breton and to a lesser extent Welsh...
—were in use by the end of the 20th century. A standard written form
Standard Written Form
The Standard Written Form or SWF of the Cornish language is an orthography standard that is designed to "provide public bodies and the educational system with a universally acceptable, inclusive, and neutral orthography"...
was agreed in 2008.
Cornish is a restored and living modern language
Modern language
A modern language is any human language that is currently in use. The term is used in language education to distinguish between languages which are used for day-to-day communication and dead classical languages such as Latin, Attic Greek, Sanskrit, and Classical Chinese, which are studied for...
, but most of its speakers are enthusiasts, persons who have learned the language through private study. Cornish speakers are geographically dispersed, meaning there is no part of Cornwall where it is spoken as a community language. As of 2009, it is taught in fifty primary schools, although regular broadcast in Cornish is limited to a weekly bilingual programme on BBC Radio Cornwall
BBC Radio Cornwall
BBC Radio Cornwall is the BBC Local Radio service for Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly in the United Kingdom. It broadcasts from its studios on Phoenix Wharf in Truro on 95.2 in the east, 96.0 on the Isles of Scilly and 103.9 in the west MHz FM, as well as on DAB.Andrew George, MP for St Ives, has...
. Daily life in Cornwall therefore is conducted in the English language, albeit with some regional peculiarities.
Legends of the Fall
Legends of the Fall
Legends of the Fall is a 1994 epic drama film based on the 1979 novella of the same title by Jim Harrison. It was directed by Edward Zwick and stars Brad Pitt, Anthony Hopkins and Aidan Quinn. The film was nominated for the Academy Awards for Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction , and Best...
, a novella by American author Jim Harrison
Jim Harrison
James "Jim" Harrison is an American author known for his poetry, fiction, essays, reviews, and writings about food. He has been called "a force of nature", and his work has been compared to that of William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway...
, detailing the lives of a Cornish American
Cornish American
Cornish Americans are citizens of the United States who describe themselves as having Cornish ancestry. Cornish ancestry is not recognised on the United States Census, although the Cornish people are recognised as a separate ethnic group and national identity for the United Kingdom Census...
family in the early 20th century, contains several Cornish language terms. These were also included in the Academy award winning film of the same name starring Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, KBE , best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television...
as Col. William Ludlow and Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt
William Bradley "Brad" Pitt is an American actor and film producer. Pitt has received two Academy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations, winning one...
as Tristan Ludlow.
Literature and folklore
Early medievalEarly Middle Ages
The Early Middle Ages was the period of European history lasting from the 5th century to approximately 1000. The Early Middle Ages followed the decline of the Western Roman Empire and preceded the High Middle Ages...
Cornwall was associated with the Matter of Britain
Matter of Britain
The Matter of Britain is a name given collectively to the body of literature and legendary material associated with Great Britain and its legendary kings, particularly King Arthur...
, a national myth recounting a legendary Celtic history of Brittonic warriors, including King Arthur
King Arthur
King Arthur is a legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries, who, according to Medieval histories and romances, led the defence of Britain against Saxon invaders in the early 6th century. The details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of folklore and literary invention, and...
. The Matter of Britain was supported by texts such as the Historia Regum Britanniae
Historia Regum Britanniae
The Historia Regum Britanniae is a pseudohistorical account of British history, written c. 1136 by Geoffrey of Monmouth. It chronicles the lives of the kings of the Britons in a chronological narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans founding the British nation...
, a pseudohistorical
Pseudohistory
Pseudohistory is a pejorative term applied to a type of historical revisionism, often involving sensational claims whose acceptance would require rewriting a significant amount of commonly accepted history, and based on methods that depart from standard historiographical conventions.Cryptohistory...
account of the history of the ancient Britons, written in the mid-12th century by Geoffrey of Monmouth
Geoffrey of Monmouth
Geoffrey of Monmouth was a cleric and one of the major figures in the development of British historiography and the popularity of tales of King Arthur...
. The Historia Regum Britanniae chronicled the lives of legendary kings of the Britons in a narrative spanning a time of two thousand years, beginning with the Trojans
Troy
Troy was a city, both factual and legendary, located in northwest Anatolia in what is now Turkey, southeast of the Dardanelles and beside Mount Ida...
founding the ancient British nation and continuing until the Anglo-Saxon invasion of Britain in the 7th century forced the Celtic Britons to the west coast, namely Wales
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
and Cornwall. Although broadly thought of as a work of fiction, Geoffrey of Monmouth's work had a lasting effect upon the identity of the Cornish. His "historical construct" characterised the ancient Britons as heroes, which later helped Celtic revivalists to redefine Cornishness as an identity closely related to ancient heroic Celtic folklore.
Another strand of Cornish folklore is derived from tales of sea-faring pirates
Piracy
Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator...
and smugglers
Smuggling
Smuggling is the clandestine transportation of goods or persons, such as out of a building, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.There are various motivations to smuggle...
who thrived in and around Cornwall from the early modern period through to the 19th century. Cornish pirates exploited both their knowledge of the Cornish coastline as well as its sheltered creeks and hidden anchorages. For many fishing villages, loot and contraband provided by pirates supported a strong and secretive underground economy
Underground economy
A black market or underground economy is a market in goods or services which operates outside the formal one supported by established state power. Typically the totality of such activity is referred to with the definite article as a complement to the official economies, by market for such goods and...
in Cornwall.
Legendary creature
Legendary creature
A legendary creature is a mythological or folkloric creature.-Origin:Some mythical creatures have their origin in traditional mythology and have been believed to be real creatures, for example the dragon, the unicorn, and griffin...
s that appear in Cornish folklore include buccas, knockers and piskies
Pixie
Pixies are mythical creatures of folklore, considered to be particularly concentrated in the areas around Devon and Cornwall, suggesting some Celtic origin for the belief and name.They are usually depicted with pointed ears, and often wearing a green outfit and pointed...
. Tales of these creatures are thought to have developed as supernatural
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
explanations for the frequent and deadly cave-in
Cave-in
A cave-in is a collapse of a geologic formation, mine or structure which typically occurs during mining or tunneling. Geologic structures prone to cave-ins include alvar, tsingy and other limestone formations, but can also include lava tubes and a variety of other subsurface rock formations.In...
s that occurred during 18th-century Cornish tin mining, or else a creation of the oxygen-starved minds of exhausted miners who returned from the underground.
Performing and visual arts
Celtic cross
A Celtic cross is a symbol that combines a cross with a ring surrounding the intersection. In the Celtic Christian world it was combined with the Christian cross and this design was often used for high crosses – a free-standing cross made of stone and often richly decorated...
es, many dating from between the 7th and 15th centuries, are found in Cornwall and have been used as inspiration in modern and contemporary Cornish visual arts. In the 1780s, John Opie
John Opie
John Opie was an English historical and portrait painter. He painted many great men and women of his day, most notably in the artistic and literary professions.-Life and work:...
was the first Cornish-born painter to gain widespread attention; his work was exhibited at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
and he was described by Joshua Reynolds
Joshua Reynolds
Sir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
as "like Caravaggio
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...
and Velázquez
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
in one". Artists who appreciated the quality of Cornwall's natural light
Sunlight
Sunlight, in the broad sense, is the total frequency spectrum of electromagnetic radiation given off by the Sun. On Earth, sunlight is filtered through the Earth's atmosphere, and solar radiation is obvious as daylight when the Sun is above the horizon.When the direct solar radiation is not blocked...
, such as J. M. W. Turner
J. M. W. Turner
Joseph Mallord William Turner RA was an English Romantic landscape painter, watercolourist and printmaker. Turner was considered a controversial figure in his day, but is now regarded as the artist who elevated landscape painting to an eminence rivalling history painting...
, began to visit, with more following after the opening of the Great Western Railway
Great Western Railway
The Great Western Railway was a British railway company that linked London with the south-west and west of England and most of Wales. It was founded in 1833, received its enabling Act of Parliament in 1835 and ran its first trains in 1838...
, including Whistler and Sickert
Walter Sickert
Walter Richard Sickert , born in Munich, Germany, was a painter who was a member of the Camden Town Group in London. He was an important influence on distinctively British styles of avant-garde art in the 20th century....
. Stanhope Forbes
Stanhope Forbes
Stanhope Alexander Forbes R.A., , was an artist and member of the influential Newlyn school of painters...
and Frank Bramley
Frank Bramley
Frank Bramley was an English post-impressionist genre painter of the Newlyn School.-Life and work:Bramley was born in Sibsey in Lincolnshire and studied at the Lincoln School of Art from 1873 to 1878, later under Charles Verlat at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp from 1879 to 1882...
settled in Cornwall in the 1880s, establishing the Newlyn School
Newlyn School
The Newlyn School is a term used to describe an art colony of artists based in or near to Newlyn, a fishing village adjacent to Penzance, Cornwall, from the 1880s until the early 20th century. The establishment of the Newlyn School was reminiscent of the Barbizon School in France, where artists...
of painting en plein air
En plein air
En plein air is a French expression which means "in the open air", and is particularly used to describe the act of painting outdoors.Artists have long painted outdoors, but in the mid-19th century working in natural light became particularly important to the Barbizon school and Impressionism...
. By the 1920s, the ceramicist
Ceramic art
In art history, ceramics and ceramic art mean art objects such as figures, tiles, and tableware made from clay and other raw materials by the process of pottery. Some ceramic products are regarded as fine art, while others are regarded as decorative, industrial or applied art objects, or as...
Bernard Leach
Bernard Leach
Bernard Howell Leach, CBE, CH , was a British studio potter and art teacher. He is regarded as the "Father of British studio pottery"-Biography:...
was established at St Ives
St Ives, Cornwall
St Ives is a seaside town, civil parish and port in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The town lies north of Penzance and west of Camborne on the coast of the Celtic Sea. In former times it was commercially dependent on fishing. The decline in fishing, however, caused a shift in commercial...
, and the St Ives School
St Ives School
The St Ives School refers to a group of artists living and working in the Cornish town of St Ives.-History:The town became a magnet for artists following the extension to West Cornwall of the Great Western Railway in 1877...
for abstract artists formed there, influenced by naive
Naïve art
Naïve art is a classification of art that is often characterized by a childlike simplicity in its subject matter and technique. While many naïve artists appear, from their works, to have little or no formal art training, this is often not true...
painters such as Alfred Wallis
Alfred Wallis
Alfred Wallis was a Cornish fisherman and artist.Wallis's parents, Charles and Jane Wallis were from Penzance in Cornwall and moved to Devonport, Devon to find work in 1850 where Alfred and his brother Charles were born. Shortly after this the children's mother died and this prompted the family to...
, and involving the work of Ben Nicholson
Ben Nicholson
Benjamin Lauder "Ben" Nicholson, OM was a British painter of abstract compositions , landscape and still-life.-Background and Training:...
, his wife Barbara Hepworth
Barbara Hepworth
Dame Barbara Hepworth DBE was an English sculptor. Her work exemplifies Modernism, and with such contemporaries as Ivon Hitchens, Henry Moore, Ben Nicholson, Naum Gabo she helped to develop modern art in Britain.-Life and work:Jocelyn Barbara Hepworth was born on 10 January 1903 in Wakefield,...
, Naum Gabo
Naum Gabo
Naum Gabo KBE, born Naum Neemia Pevsner was a prominent Russian sculptor in the Constructivism movement and a pioneer of Kinetic Art.-Early life:...
and Patrick Heron
Patrick Heron
Patrick Heron , was an English painter, writer and designer, based in St. Ives, Cornwall.- Early life :...
.
Religion
Anciently, the religion of the Cornish Britons was Celtic polytheismCeltic polytheism
Celtic polytheism, commonly known as Celtic paganism, refers to the religious beliefs and practices adhered to by the Iron Age peoples of Western Europe now known as the Celts, roughly between 500 BCE and 500 CE, spanning the La Tène period and the Roman era, and in the case of the Insular Celts...
, a pagan
Paganism
Paganism is a blanket term, typically used to refer to non-Abrahamic, indigenous polytheistic religious traditions....
, animistic
Animism
Animism refers to the belief that non-human entities are spiritual beings, or at least embody some kind of life-principle....
faith, assumed to be led by Druid
Druid
A druid was a member of the priestly class in Britain, Ireland, and Gaul, and possibly other parts of Celtic western Europe, during the Iron Age....
s in full or in part. Early Christianity
Early Christianity
Early Christianity is generally considered as Christianity before 325. The New Testament's Book of Acts and Epistle to the Galatians records that the first Christian community was centered in Jerusalem and its leaders included James, Peter and John....
is thought to have existed in Cornwall during the 1st century, but limited to individual travellers and visitors, possibly including Priscillian
Priscillian
Priscillian was bishop of Ávila and a theologian from Roman Gallaecia , the first person in the history of Christianity to be executed for heresy . He founded an ascetic group that, in spite of persecution, continued to subsist in Hispania and Gaul until the later 6th century...
, a Gallic
Gauls
The Gauls were a Celtic people living in Gaul, the region roughly corresponding to what is now France, Belgium, Switzerland and Northern Italy, from the Iron Age through the Roman period. They mostly spoke the Continental Celtic language called Gaulish....
theologian who may have been exiled to the Isles of Scilly
Isles of Scilly
The Isles of Scilly form an archipelago off the southwestern tip of the Cornish peninsula of Great Britain. The islands have had a unitary authority council since 1890, and are separate from the Cornwall unitary authority, but some services are combined with Cornwall and the islands are still part...
. Celtic Christianity
Celtic Christianity
Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages...
was introduced to Cornwall in the year 520 by Saint Petroc
Saint Petroc
Saint Petroc is a 6th century Celtic Christian saint. He was born in Wales but primarily ministered to the Britons of Dumnonia which included the modern counties of Devon , Cornwall , and parts of Somerset and Dorset...
, a Brython from the kingdom of Glywysing, and other missionaries from Wales, as well as by Gaelic
Gaels
The Gaels or Goidels are speakers of one of the Goidelic Celtic languages: Irish, Scottish Gaelic, and Manx. Goidelic speech originated in Ireland and subsequently spread to western and northern Scotland and the Isle of Man....
monks and holy women from Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
; this "formative period" has left a legacy of granite high cross
High cross
A high cross or standing cross is a free-standing Christian cross made of stone and often richly decorated. There was a unique Early Medieval tradition in Ireland and Britain of raising large sculpted stone crosses, usually outdoors...
monuments throughout Cornwall. Dedications to many different Cornish saints can also be traced to this period. In the Middle Ages, Roman Catholicism
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the world's largest Christian church, with over a billion members. Led by the Pope, it defines its mission as spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ, administering the sacraments and exercising charity...
was dominant in Cornwall, and even in the 17th century the Cornish were "fervently Roman Catholic", slow to accept the Protestant Reformation
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
, according to some scholars. The adoption of Anglicanism
Anglicanism
Anglicanism is a tradition within Christianity comprising churches with historical connections to the Church of England or similar beliefs, worship and church structures. The word Anglican originates in ecclesia anglicana, a medieval Latin phrase dating to at least 1246 that means the English...
was, eventually, near-universal in Cornwall and facilitated the anglicisation
Anglicisation
Anglicisation, or anglicization , is the process of converting verbal or written elements of any other language into a form that is more comprehensible to an English speaker, or, more generally, of altering something such that it becomes English in form or character.The term most often refers to...
of the Cornish people. A variety of dissenting congregations such as the Quakers and Baptists were to be found in certain districts. Through a combination of tours of Cornwall by John Wesley
John Wesley
John Wesley was a Church of England cleric and Christian theologian. Wesley is largely credited, along with his brother Charles Wesley, as founding the Methodist movement which began when he took to open-air preaching in a similar manner to George Whitefield...
, rural isolation and compatibility with Cornish tastes and sensibilities, Methodism
Wesleyanism
Wesleyanism or Wesleyan theology refers, respectively, to either the eponymous movement of Protestant Christians who have historically sought to follow the methods or theology of the eighteenth-century evangelical reformers, John Wesley and his brother Charles Wesley, or to the likewise eponymous...
, an evangelical revival movement within the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
, became the form of Christianity practised by the majority of the population all over Cornwall during the 19th century. During this time other kinds of Methodist churches appeared such as the Bible Christians and there were also Evangelical and Anglo-Catholic
Oxford Movement
The Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy...
revivals within the Church of England.
Sport
Sport in the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has given birth to a range of major international sports including: Association football, rugby , cricket, golf, tennis, badminton, squash, rounders, hockey, boxing, snooker, billiards and curling...
has been limited. There are no teams affiliated to the Cornwall County Football Association
Cornwall County Football Association
The Cornwall County Football Association, also known as the Cornwall FA, is the governing body of football in the county of Cornwall. Formed in 1889, they are responsible for the administration, control, promotion and development of football at all levels throughout the county.-Organisation:The...
that play in the Football League of England and Wales
England and Wales
England and Wales is a jurisdiction within the United Kingdom. It consists of England and Wales, two of the four countries of the United Kingdom...
, and the Cornwall County Cricket Club
Cornwall County Cricket Club
Cornwall County Cricket Club is one of the county clubs which make up the Minor Counties in the English domestic cricket structure, representing the historic county of Cornwall and playing in the Minor Counties Championship and the MCCA Knockout Trophy...
plays as one of the minor counties of English cricket
Minor counties of English cricket
The Minor Counties are the cricketing counties of England and Wales that are not afforded first-class status. The game is administered by the Minor Counties Cricket Association which comes under the England and Wales Cricket Board...
. Viewed as an "important identifier of ethnic affiliation", rugby union
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
has become a sport strongly tied with notions of Cornishness, and since the 20th century, rugby union in Cornwall has emerged as one of the most popular spectator and team sports in Cornwall, with professional Cornish rugby footballers being described as a "formidable force", "naturally independent, both in thought and deed, yet paradoxically staunch English patriots whose top players have represented England with pride and passion". In 1985, sports journalist Alan Gibson
Alan Gibson
Norman Alan Stanley Gibson was an English journalist, writer and radio broadcaster, best known for his work in connection with cricket, though he also sometimes covered football and rugby union...
made a direct connection between love of rugby in Cornwall and the ancient parish games of hurling and wrestling that existed for centuries before rugby officially began.
Cornish wrestling
Cornish wrestling
Cornish wrestling is a form of wrestling which has been established in Cornwall, an area of southwest Britain for several centuries. The referee is known as a 'stickler', and it is claimed that the popular meaning of the word as a 'pedant' originates from this usage...
(also known as Wrasslin') is a regional, folk style of grappling
Grappling
Grappling refers to techniques, maneuvers, and counters applied to an opponent in order to gain a physical advantage, such as improving relative position, escaping, submitting, or injury to the opponent. Grappling is a general term that covers techniques used in many disciplines, styles and martial...
or martial arts
Martial arts
Martial arts are extensive systems of codified practices and traditions of combat, practiced for a variety of reasons, including self-defense, competition, physical health and fitness, as well as mental and spiritual development....
. The Cornish Wrestling Association was formed in 1923, to standardise the rules of the sport and to promote Cornish wrestling throughout Cornwall and the world. Together with Cornish hurling
Cornish Hurling
Cornish Hurling or Hurling the Silver Ball , is an outdoor team game of Celtic origin played only in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It is played with a small silver ball...
(a localised form of medieval football), Wrasslin' has been promoted as a distinctly Celtic game, tied closely with Cornish identity.
Surfing
Surfing
Surfing' is a surface water sport in which the surfer rides a surfboard on the crest and face of a wave which is carrying the surfer towards the shore...
was popularised in Cornwall during the late 20th century, and has since become readily associated with Cornishness. The waves around the Cornish coastline are created by low pressure systems from the Atlantic Ocean
Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
which unleash powerful swells eastwards creating multiple, excellent surfing conditions in some parts of the coast of Cornwall. Newquay
Newquay
Newquay is a town, civil parish, seaside resort and fishing port in Cornwall, England. It is situated on the North Atlantic coast of Cornwall approximately west of Bodmin and north of Truro....
, one of Britain's "premier surfing towns", regularly hosts world championship surfing events.
Institutions and politics
Politics of Cornwall
Cornwall is currently administered as a county of South West England whose politics are influenced by a number of issues that make it distinct from the general political scene in the wider UK, and the political trends of neighbouring counties...
take place within a wider national political framework of a constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy
Constitutional monarchy is a form of government in which a monarch acts as head of state within the parameters of a constitution, whether it be a written, uncodified or blended constitution...
, in which the United Kingdom's monarch
Monarchy of the United Kingdom
The monarchy of the United Kingdom is the constitutional monarchy of the United Kingdom and its overseas territories. The present monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, has reigned since 6 February 1952. She and her immediate family undertake various official, ceremonial and representational duties...
is head of state
Head of State
A head of state is the individual that serves as the chief public representative of a monarchy, republic, federation, commonwealth or other kind of state. His or her role generally includes legitimizing the state and exercising the political powers, functions, and duties granted to the head of...
and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
Prime Minister of the United Kingdom
The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the Head of Her Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom. The Prime Minister and Cabinet are collectively accountable for their policies and actions to the Sovereign, to Parliament, to their political party and...
is the head of government
Head of government
Head of government is the chief officer of the executive branch of a government, often presiding over a cabinet. In a parliamentary system, the head of government is often styled prime minister, chief minister, premier, etc...
. Cornish politics are marked by a long tradition of Liberalism
Liberalism
Liberalism is the belief in the importance of liberty and equal rights. Liberals espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these principles, but generally, liberals support ideas such as constitutionalism, liberal democracy, free and fair elections, human rights,...
.
Important historical institutions were the Duchy of Cornwall
Duchy of Cornwall
The Duchy of Cornwall is one of two royal duchies in England, the other being the Duchy of Lancaster. The eldest son of the reigning British monarch inherits the duchy and title of Duke of Cornwall at the time of his birth, or of his parent's succession to the throne. If the monarch has no son, the...
and the Cornish Stannary Courts and Parliaments
Stannary Courts and Parliaments
The Stannary Parliaments and Stannary Courts were legislative and legal institutions in Cornwall and in Devon , England. The Stannary Courts administered equity for the region's tin-miners and tin mining interests, and they were also courts of record for the towns dependent on the mines...
. The Stannary court administered equity, through special laws and legal exemptions, for all matters relating to the tin mines and tin trade in Cornwall. Cornish miners were effectively exempt from the jurisdiction of the law courts at Westminster
Palace of Westminster
The Palace of Westminster, also known as the Houses of Parliament or Westminster Palace, is the meeting place of the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom—the House of Lords and the House of Commons...
, except "in such cases as should affect land, life or limb". The ancient privileges of the Stannary Courts and Parliaments were confirmed by successive Royal Charter
Royal Charter
A royal charter is a formal document issued by a monarch as letters patent, granting a right or power to an individual or a body corporate. They were, and are still, used to establish significant organizations such as cities or universities. Charters should be distinguished from warrants and...
s in the Middle Ages, including those administered by Kings John
John of England
John , also known as John Lackland , was King of England from 6 April 1199 until his death...
, Edward I
Edward I of England
Edward I , also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England from 1272 to 1307. The first son of Henry III, Edward was involved early in the political intrigues of his father's reign, which included an outright rebellion by the English barons...
and Edward III of England
Edward III of England
Edward III was King of England from 1327 until his death and is noted for his military success. Restoring royal authority after the disastrous reign of his father, Edward II, Edward III went on to transform the Kingdom of England into one of the most formidable military powers in Europe...
. As the tin mines of Cornwall lost their economic importance during the 18th and 19th centuries, so the Stannary institutions lost political power. The last Stannary parliament was held at Truro
Truro
Truro is a city and civil parish in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The city is the centre for administration, leisure and retail in Cornwall, with a population recorded in the 2001 census of 17,431. Truro urban statistical area, which includes parts of surrounding parishes, has a 2001 census...
in 1752, and continued, by adjournments, until 11 September 1753.
As in the rest of Great Britain, the Liberal Party
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
dominated Cornish politics during the 19th century, although Socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
gained limited support in western Cornwall, and the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
won preference after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. Nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
(or regionalism
Regionalism (politics)
Regionalism is a term used in international relations. Regionalism also constitutes one of the three constituents of the international commercial system...
) in Cornwall traces its roots to the Irish Home Rule bills of the late 19th century, and is represented by the Cornish self-government movement
Cornish self-government movement
Cornish nationalism is an umbrella term that refers to a cultural, political and social movement based in Cornwall, the most southwestern part of the island of Great Britain, which has for centuries been administered as part of England, within the United Kingdom...
, a political action group that is predominantly organised to promote Cornwall as the national homeland of the Cornish, campaign for devolution
Devolution
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...
, and win it the status as a fifth country within the UK
Countries of the United Kingdom
Countries of the United Kingdom is a term used to describe England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. These four countries together form the sovereign state of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, which is also described as a country. The alternative terms, constituent...
rather than outright separatism
Separatism
Separatism is the advocacy of a state of cultural, ethnic, tribal, religious, racial, governmental or gender separation from the larger group. While it often refers to full political secession, separatist groups may seek nothing more than greater autonomy...
. More "militant" variants of Cornish nationalism however claim that because of historical constitutional peculiarities regarding the status of Cornwall
Constitutional status of Cornwall
Cornwall is currently administered as a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England.However, a number of organisations and individuals question the constitutional basis for the administration of Cornwall as part of England, arguing that the Duchy Charters of 1337 place the governance of...
, the law of the European Union does or should not have jurisdiction over Cornwall until Cornish sovereignty is recognised. Popularisation of Cornish nationalism is attributed to a Celtic cultural revival in Cornwall which itself begain with a newed interested in the Cornish language in the 1920s. The revival of the Cornish language encouraged a parallel revival of Celtic traditions, which by the 1970s had spurred on Cornish nationalism. The United Kingdom's entry into the European Economic Community
European Economic Community
The European Economic Community The European Economic Community (EEC) The European Economic Community (EEC) (also known as the Common Market in the English-speaking world, renamed the European Community (EC) in 1993The information in this article primarily covers the EEC's time as an independent...
in 1973 prompted claims that the Cornish should be granted their own devolved
Devolution
Devolution is the statutory granting of powers from the central government of a sovereign state to government at a subnational level, such as a regional, local, or state level. Devolution can be mainly financial, e.g. giving areas a budget which was formerly administered by central government...
national assembly
National Assembly
National Assembly is either a legislature, or the lower house of a bicameral legislature in some countries. The best known National Assembly, and the first legislature to be known by this title, was that established during the French Revolution in 1789, known as the Assemblée nationale...
—the Cornish Assembly
Cornish Assembly
The Cornish Assembly is a proposed devolved regional assembly for Cornwall in the United Kingdom along the lines of the Scottish Parliament, National Assembly for Wales and Northern Ireland Assembly.-Overview:...
—comparable to that of the National Assembly for Wales
National Assembly for Wales
The National Assembly for Wales is a devolved assembly with power to make legislation in Wales. The Assembly comprises 60 members, who are known as Assembly Members, or AMs...
. Mebyon Kernow
Mebyon Kernow
Mebyon Kernow is a left-of-centre political party in Cornwall, United Kingdom. It primarily campaigns for devolution to Cornwall in the form of a Cornish Assembly, as well as social democracy and environmental protection.MK was formed as a pressure group in 1951, and contained as members activists...
is a left-wing political party
Left-wing politics
In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...
based in Cornwall, founded in 1951. Its main objective is attaining greater autonomy for Cornwall through the establishment of a legislative Cornish Assembly. As at 2009 Mebyon Kernow has no Members of Parliament elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, and in the United Kingdom local elections, 2009
United Kingdom local elections, 2009
The 2009 United Kingdom local elections were elections held to all 27 County Councils, three existing Unitary Authorities and five new Unitary Authorities, all in England, on 4 June 2009...
received 4 per cent of votes to elect councillors to Cornwall Council, behind the Conservative Party
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
(34 per cent), Liberal Democrats
Liberal Democrats
The Liberal Democrats are a social liberal political party in the United Kingdom which supports constitutional and electoral reform, progressive taxation, wealth taxation, human rights laws, cultural liberalism, banking reform and civil liberties .The party was formed in 1988 by a merger of the...
(28 per cent), and Independents
Independent (politician)
In politics, an independent or non-party politician is an individual not affiliated to any political party. Independents may hold a centrist viewpoint between those of major political parties, a viewpoint more extreme than any major party, or they may have a viewpoint based on issues that they do...
(23 per cent)
Since the 2009 structural changes to local government in England
2009 structural changes to local government in England
Structural changes to local government in England were effected on 1 April 2009, whereby a number of new unitary authorities were created in parts of the country which previously operated a 'two-tier' system of counties and districts...
, Cornwall Council has been a unitary authority
Unitary authorities of England
Unitary authorities of England are areas where a single local authority is responsible for a variety of services for a district that elsewhere are administered separately by two councils...
, serving as the sole executive
Executive (government)
Executive branch of Government is the part of government that has sole authority and responsibility for the daily administration of the state bureaucracy. The division of power into separate branches of government is central to the idea of the separation of powers.In many countries, the term...
, deliberative
Deliberation
Deliberation is a process of thoughtfully weighing options, usually prior to voting. In legal settings a jury famously uses deliberation because it is given specific options, like guilty or not guilty, along with information and arguments to evaluate. Deliberation emphasizes the use of logic and...
, and legislative body responsible for local policy, setting council tax
Council tax
Council Tax is the system of local taxation used in England, Scotland and Wales to part fund the services provided by local government in each country. It was introduced in 1993 by the Local Government Finance Act 1992, as a successor to the unpopular Community Charge...
, and allocating budgets.
See also
- List of people from Cornwall
- List of topics related to Cornwall
External links
- www.cornwall.gov.uk, the website of Cornwall Council
- www.cornishculture.co.uk, an online guide to Cornish Celtic culture
- Cornish 'should be an ethnic minority' from Western Morning News