South America

Cornish miners who travelled to South America took more than their mining skills with them: a version of pasties (made with chillies), 'pastes', is still a local favourite, and football clubs were established in some areas, too: Pachuca Athletic was initially made up only of Cornish miners!

Read one of our forum posts, about a family from Redruth who had links with Mexico.

North America

William Curnow, a copper miner, had emigrated to the Michigan area from St Ives around 1903, and was travelling back to the United States after a visit home when he lost his life in the sinking of the Titanic.

South Africa

Cornish miners took their skills for working in hard-rock, and applied them to the diamond-fields around Johannesburg in the 1870s.  Many Cornish miners also swelled the gold rushes in the 1880s.

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Many miners travelled overseas and left families here in Cornwall, sending money back to support them - and it was the taxes imposed by the South African government on these monies that led to rising tensions before the Second Boer War.

Australia