St Erth was a parish that in the 1800s included part of the industrial town of Hayle. Near the northern limits of the parish could be found Hayle Foundry, Cornwall’s biggest engineering foundry in the 1800s. By the middle of the nineteenth century around one in seven of St Erth’s men were foundry workers or … Continue reading St Erth: two emigrants to Australia
Tag: Hayle
Hayle: powerhouse of Cornish engineering
In 1779, John Harvey, a blacksmith in the parish of Gwinear, moved to Hayle and established a small foundry there. His son Henry worked to transform this into Cornwall’s major engineering works, by the nineteenth century employing hundreds of men. To the east of Harvey’s foundry was Copperhouse Foundry, originally a copper smelting works begun … Continue reading Hayle: powerhouse of Cornish engineering
Views of Cornwall in 1919
Donald Shaw MacLaughlan (1876-1938) was an American artist (although born in Prince Edward Island, Canada). As a young man he followed the trail of many other artists from North America and travelled to Europe, basing himself thereafter mainly in France but travelling widely. Among his journeys he visited Cornwall, where he spent some time around … Continue reading Views of Cornwall in 1919
Central or southern? Cornwall’s contested railway route
These days we tend to take the route of the current railway mainline in Cornwall from Penzance to Plymouth for granted. But from 1844 to 1846 a heated debate raged about which direction the railway in Cornwall should take. There were already two passenger railways in Cornwall. A short line from Bodmin to Wadebridge had … Continue reading Central or southern? Cornwall’s contested railway route
Cholera in Cornwall: the Victorians’ coronavirus
Not strictly Victorian perhaps, as it preceded Victoria’s reign by five years. As if the endemic typhoid, typhus and dysentery, not to mention the measles, mumps and whooping cough that every year cut a swathe through thousands of infants, were not enough, in 1832 cholera arrived in Cornwall. Outbreaks periodically panicked local authorities into the … Continue reading Cholera in Cornwall: the Victorians’ coronavirus
Cornish studies resources 