Hughes Engine House at Moonta, part of the historic mining landscape in this part of South Australia that would have been worked on by miners from Cornwall. Photo courtesy Geevor Tin Mine Museum and Heritage Centre
A Cornish museum is trying to trace the links between the local 19th century mining community and families in South Australia.
Staff and volunteers at Geevor Tin Mine, near the town of St Just, seven miles west of Penzance, are working with their counterparts at the Moonta Mining Museum, 100 miles north-west of Adeliade, to explore the migration of skilled miners and artisans from Cornwall.
Geevor is particularly interested in tracing family links and is calling on local people to help them trace the families who left St Just and the surrounding area to work in Australia in the late 1800s.
“This is an opportunity for Geevor to work with this very popular Australian museum and to explore the historical and visual connections,” said Fiona Young, Geevor’s Education Manager.
The mine at Geevor is part of the UNESCO Cornwall and West Devon Mining Landscape Heritage Site. Photo John Such/National Trust
“There has already been tremendous response from Cornish families keen to learn about their relatives and the history of their families who settled in Australia.”
Traces of copper were found at what was to become Moonta in 1861 and the discovery led to a rapid influx of skilled workers from Cornwall. Their application of cutting edge skills and technology accelerated the development of deep mining in the area, with Cornish methods used in the construction, design, labour organisation and mine works themselves.
Cornish families were to settle in familiar patterns around the mines, retaining their traditions and religious practices. In the late 1800s, Moonta grew to a population of 12,000 as is now known as part of Australia’s ‘Copper Triangle’ and ‘Little Cornwall’.
Cornish miners abroad were to become known by the nickname ‘Cousin Jack’. It is not known exactly where this came from – it could be that it was because they were often asking for a job for their ‘Cousin Jack’ back home, or that miners used to address each other by the old greeting of ‘cousin’, with Jack the most common man’s name in Cornwall.
The Victory Shaft Headgear at Geevor. Photo AHW May
Mines in the area supplied much of the western world's tin and copper for much of the last 4,000 years and, for a time during the 18th and 19th centuries, the area was the world's greatest producer of these metals.
For more information about the project, or if you have any information about links between Cornwall and the Moonta region, call Geevor Tin Mine Museum and Heritage Centre on 01736 788662.
A photography and printmaking workshop will be held at Geevor on August 7 2007, where children can learn about local mining heritage.
