The Cornish Diaspora

My Strickland ancestors came originally from Cornwall and most of them where connected to tin and copper mining in one way or another, either as a miner or mine adventurer, a mine engineer or a mine merchant. During the mid nineteenth century many Cornish copper and tin mines began to close down due to economic reasons and easier accessible tin and copper being found in other countries. During this time many Cornish left Cornwall to find work elsewhere in copper and tin mines throughout the world. It is estimated that 250,000 Cornish migrated abroad between 1861 and 1901 and these emigrants included farmers, merchants and tradesmen, but miners made up most of the numbers. There is a well known saying in Cornwall that 'a mine is a hole anywhere in the world with at least one Cornishman at the bottom of it!' You can also still find Cornish Pasties being made and sold in many old Cornish communities throughout the world including South America. My great, great grandfather’s family is an example of this mass emigration away from Cornwall. Robert Stickland was born in April 1829, the eldest son of John Stickland and Grace Moreshead. The family lived in Trevesack which lies between Gwinear and Phillack close by to the port of Hayle. Father John is recorded as being an engineer and most probably worked for the Cornish Copper Company which was located at the Copperhouse side of Hayle. John and Grace had 10 children, one of whom died in infancy, of the remaining 9 children, four of their sons and one daughter left Cornwall to find work elsewhere. Their youngest son Richard Arundel Stickland died on the 4 October 1862 at the young age of 14 through a fall from the mast of a schooner in the quay at Hayle resulting in serious head injuries, he only survived a half hour after his fall.

The first to leave Cornwall was my great great grandfather Robert Stickland, as a young man he probably served an apprenticeship as a Boilermaker either at Harveys of Hayle or the Cornish Copper Company. At some point in the 1840’s he moved to Birmingham which at the time was the hub of the Industrial Revolution and home to Boulton and Watts and other large engineering works where boilers and pumping machines were made. On the 14th October 1848 at the young age of 20, Robert was married to a young widow Jane Middleton née Triggs who was possibly also originally from Cornwall. This marriage didn’t last long as Jane sadly passed away in the April of 1853 and I haven’t found any children to this marriage. Shortly afterwards Robert moved further North to Newark upon Trent where he continued to work as a Boiler Maker and eventually married my great great grandmother Ann Templeman. His son John Robert eventually moved to Hull, East Yorkshire, where I was born.

The next to move away from Cornwall were sons John and William, both of whom moved a lot further afield, emigrating to Australia where large lodes of copper, with gold and other metals were found attracting large numbers of Cornish with their hard rock mining skills. The area around Orange in New South Wales, Australia is still known as the Cornish Settlement because of the large amount of Cornish communities in this area. John Stickland married Eliza Treglown in Redruth, Cornwall in 1851, but a few years later he left Eliza and emigrated to Australia, arriving in Melbourne on the 11 Augustus 1854. Husbands often traveled alone abroad, sending money back to their spouses until they could settle somewhere and send for their family to join them, in John’s case this didn’t happen as Eliza eventually married someone else in 1862 in Norwich, Norfolk, stating on the marriage certificate that she was a widow. In October of 1857, John Stickland was initiated as a Freemason in Beechworth, Victoria, Australia, he is recorded as being a miner and residing in Indigo. On the 25 November 1864 he married Isabella Emily Bowie in the Temporary Episcopal Church in Young, New South Wales, they had already had two children before their marriage, possibly he waited to marry until hearing about the marriage of his first wife. John and Emily had 11 children and lived in the area around Young, Carcoar and eventually Parkes all of which is known as the Cornish Settlement. Through a DNA match with one of John’s decendents I was able to discover all of this information about John, whom I had been unable to previously trace, he died in 1899 in Parkes, New South Wales. His younger brother William also emigrated to Australia, I am not sure whether he travelled together with his brother John but William settled and married in Beaufort, Victoria. His wife Mary Prowse was also from Cornwall, she had arrived in Melbourne in the January of 1857 with Benjamin Bone whom she had two children with even though Benjamin seems to have had a wife and children back in Cornwall. After Benjamin Bone’s death in 1861 she married William Stickland on the 4 October 1862 in Beaufort. William and Mary had three daughters one of whom was named Grace Morsehead Stickland after William’s mother. William died on the 11 May 1914 in Canterbury, Melbourne, Australia in his eightieth year, he was buried in Beaufort. I also have a DNA match with one of William’s decendents.

The next of John and Grace’s children to leave Cornwall was their daughter Wilmot. On the 17 November 1858 Wilmot was married to Thomas Miles who came from the neighbouring village of Angarrack. Shortly after their marriage Thomas and Wilmot left for America where they headed to California to take part in the Gold Rush. Their first child, a daughter, was born less than a year later on 17 September 1859 in Grass Valley, California, this is in the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, north east of present day Sacramento, and was the richest of all California's gold mining towns. I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for Wilmot to go through her first pregnancy and childbirth so far away from her home and literally in the Wild West, though Grass Valley had become a large bustling town and probably many other Cornish had settled here. Thomas quickly made a lot of money in a few short years because when they returned to Cornwall in order for Wilmot to give birth to their son in May 1861 he had over £1,000. Sadly, Thomas probably also picked up tuberculosis during their travels and on the 25 October 1862 he passed away. In the summer of 1864 Wilmot married her cousin John Stickland, their tragic story can be read in a previous blog called “ Skeletons in the cupboard”. Wilmot’s daughter Elizabeth Grace who had been born in California, eventually emigrated back to the USA where she married Cornish man, Charles Dawes Pascoe in Butte, Montana, another large Cornish mining community.

The last of John and Grace’s children to leave Cornwall was one of their youngest sons, James. In 1861 at age 20 he was still living at home with his parents, his younger sister Eliza and his younger brother Richard Arundell. In October 1862 Richard had his fatal accident and in 1865 father John passed away. Somewhere around the mid 1860’s James moved up to the North of England, to Haydon Bridge, Northumberland where he began work as a lead ore miner. James lived and worked here until his death in 1905, he never married. I often wonder how much communication there was between the children who left Cornwall and their parents back home, and did any letters survive? That would be wonderful to read one of their letters. I also wonder whether my great great grandfather Robert ever returned to visit his family in Cornwall. Both the names John and Grace have been used for several generations in my family which shows a continuity and a connection to the past and even before I discoverd that my ancestors came from Cornwall I felt a bond and a love to this beautiful area, a feeling of returning home.