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Little Cornwall heritage is ‘gold’
The Moonta Mines are one of the finest examples of Cornish mining architecture in Australia. Photo Evelyn Low
Settlement and development of South Australia’s copper ‘triangle’ by Cornish miners not only helped put the colony on the road to prosperity but remains a showcase of early industrial and mining history in the Southern Hemisphere, says leading historian Professor Philip Payton.
From the 1840s – a decade before Victoria’s colonial gold rush – Cornish migrants from south-western Britain discovered then opened up several mines in regional SA, using ‘cutting edge’ technology, including high-pressure steam engineering and other techniques in Australia for the first time.