Professor Philip Payton
Emeritus Professor
Overview
As Emeritus Professor of Cornish & Australian Studies, Philip Payton is acknowledged as a leading specialist on Cornish emigration history. His The Cornish Overseas: A History of Cornwall’s Great Emigration remains the standard volume on the subject, and will re-aappear in a revised edition from University of Exeter Press in 2020. His study One and All: Labor and the Radical Tradition in South Australia, published in 2016 by Wakefield Press (Adelaide), highlights the impact of Cornish emigrants in Australian politics during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.His earlier book Regional Australia and the Great War: ‘The Boys from Old Kio’ (University of Exeter Press: 2012) is an in depth examination of the wartime experiences of one Cornish emigrant community, and complements his Making Moonta: The Invention of ‘Australia’s Little Cornwall’ (University of Exeter Press: 2007). 2020 will also see a new edition of his Australia's Little Cornwall: A Pictorial History (Wakefield Press, Adelaide), first published in 1978.
Philip Payton has also made a significant contribution to Cornish biographical studies, and two important biographies include John Betjeman and Cornwall: ‘The Celebrated Cornish Nationalist’ (University of Exeter Press: 2010) and A.L. Rowse and Cornwall: A Paradoxical Patriot (University of Exeter Press: 2005, paperback 2007). A shorter, introductory volume is D.H. Lawrence and Cornwall (Truran, St Agnes: 2009).
Philip is also author of Cornwall: A History (revised edition, University of Exeter Press: 2017), and edited the annual volume Cornish Studies, published by University of Exeter Press, for twenty-one years. His Maritime History of Cornwall, edited jointly with Alston Kennerley and Helen Doe, was published by University of Exeter Press.in 2014, and his edited volume Cornwall in the Age of Rebellion 1490-1690 will appear from University of Exeter Press in 2020. Notable earlier books include The Making of Modern Cornwall: Historical Experience and the Persistence of 'Difference' (Truran, Redruth, 1992) and the edited volume Cornwall Since the War: The Contemporary History of a European Region (ICS/Truran, Redruth, 1993).
Additionally, Philip has written widely on other subjects, and is the editor or author of more than 50 books altogether. The edited volume Emigrants and Historians: Essays in Honour of Eric Richards (Wakefield Press, Adelaide) appeared in 2017, as did his History of Sussex (Carnegie, Lancaster). His interest in the history of war is reflected in his Australia in the Great War (Robert Hale, London: 2015), 'Repat': A Concise History of Repatriation in Australia published by the Australian Government's Department of Veterans' Affairs in 2018, and More Than The Last Shilling: Repatriation in Australia 1994-2018, also published by the Department of Veterans' Affairs, in 2019.
Research
Philip's research interests lie in the history and politics of modern Cornwall and Australia, broadly from the late eighteenth to the twenty-first century, with a particular focus on issues of emigration and identity, together with mining, maritime and military history. Listed below are recent awards and a list of publications:
Research Awards
2015-2016: $AUD 90,000 Don Dunstan Foundation, Adelaide.
2017-2019: $AUD 136,000 Australian Government, Department of Veterans' Affairs.
2019: $AUD 63,000 Australian Government, Department of Veterans' Affairs
Books
More Than The Last Shilling: Repatriation in Australia 1994-2018, Australian Government, Department of Veterns' Affairs, Canberra, 2019.
(ed. with Andrekos Varnava), Australia, Migration and Empire: Immigrants in a Globalised World, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2019.
'Repat': A Concise History of Repatriation in Australia, Australian Government Department of Veterans' Affairs, Canberra, 2018.
Cornwall: A History, revised edition, University of Exeter Press, 2017.
A History of Sussex, Carnegie, Lancaster, 2017.
(ed.) Emigrants and Historians: Essays in Honour of Eric Richards, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2016.
One and All: Labor and the Radical Tradition in South Australia, Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2016.
Australia in the Great War, Robert Hale, London, 2015.
(ed. with Alston Kennerley and Helen Doe), The Maritime History of Cornwall, University of Exeter Press, 2014.
(ed.) Cornish Studies: Twenty-One, University of Exeter Press, 2013.
Regional Australia and the Great War: 'The Boys from Old Kio', University of Exeter Press, 2012.
(ed.), Cornish Studies: Thirteen, University of Exeter Press, 2005.
A.L. Rowse: A Paradoxical Patriot, University of Exeter Press, February 2005.
The Cornish Overseas: A History of Cornwall’s Great Emigration, Cornwall Editions, Fowey, March 2005.
(ed.), Cornish Studies: Twelve, University of Exeter Press, 2004.
Cornwall – A History, Cornwall Editions, Fowey, 2004.
(ed.), Cornish Studies: Eleven, University of Exeter Press, 2003.
(ed.), Cornish Studies: Ten, University of Exeter Press, 2002.
A Vision of Cornwall, Alexander Associates, Fowey, 2002.
Cornwall’s History: An Introduction, Tor Mark Press, Redruth, 2002.
(ed.), Cornish Studies: Nine, University of Exeter Press, 2001.
(with Amy Hale, eds.), New Directions in Celtic Studies, University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 2000.
(ed), Cornish Studies: Eight, University of Exeter Press, 2000.
(ed.), Cornwall For Ever! The Millennium Book for Cornwall, Cornwall Heritage Trust, Lostwithiel, 2000.
(ed.), Cornish Studies: Seven, University of Exeter Press, 1999.
The Cornish Overseas, Alexander Associates, Fowey, 1999.
(ed.), Cornish Studies: Six, University of Exeter Press, 1998.
(ed.), Cornish Studies: Five, University of Exeter Press, 1997.
Cornwall, Alexander Associates, Fowey, 1996.
(with Nicholas Johnson and Adrian Spalding, eds.), The Conservation Value of Metalliferous Mine Sites in Cornwall, Institute of Cornish Studies/Cornwall Archaeological Unit, Truro, 1996.
(ed.), Cornish Studies: Four, University of Exeter Press, 1996.
(ed.), Cornish Studies: Three, University of Exeter Press, 1995.
(ed.), Cornish Studies: Two, University of Exeter Press, 1994.
(ed.), Cornish Studies: One, University of Exeter Press, 1993.
(ed.), Cornwall Since the War: The Contemporary History of A European Region, Institute of Cornish Studies/Dyllansow Truran, Redruth, 1993.
(with Leonard Truran, eds.), Cyril Noall’s St Ives Mining District: Vol II, Dyllansow Truran, Redruth, 1993.
The Making of Modern Cornwall: Historical Experience and the Persistence of ‘Difference’, Dyllansow Truran, Redruth, 1992.
(ed.), Cyril Noall’s Cornish Mine Disasters, Dyllansow Truran, Redruth, 1989.
Tregantle and Scraesdon: Their Forts and Railway, Dyllansow Truran, Redruth, 1988.
The Cornish Farmer in Australia, Dyllansow Truran, Redruth, 1987.
The Cornish Miner in Australia, Dyllansow Truran, Redruth, 1984.
Cornish Carols From Australia, Dyllansow Truran, Redruth, 1984.
The Story of HMS Fisgard, Dyllansow Truran, Redruth, 1983.
Pictorial History of Australia’s Little Cornwall, Rigby, Adelaide, 1978, 94pp.
Articles
‘Making Moonta: The Invention of Australia’s Little Cornwall’, Journal of Australasian Mining History, 4, September 2006.
‘Cousin Jacks and Ancient Britons: Cornish Immigrants and Ethnic Identity’, Journal of Australian Studies, 68, 2001, pp.54-64.
‘Local and Regional History: The View from Cornwall’, in Locality (Centre for Community History UNSW), Vol. 11, No3, 2000, pp. 18-22.
‘Re-inventing Celtic Australia: Constructions of Identity from the Colonial Period to the Era of Multiculturalism’, Australian Studies, Vol.12, No2, Winter 1997, pp. 78-90.
‘On Centre and Periphery’, Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, 4:3., 1992, pp. 207-211.
‘Socio-economic Change in Post-War Cornwall’, Journal of Interdisciplinary Economics, 4:3, 1992, pp. 241-248.
Chapters in Books
‘Cornish’, in Keith Brown (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics, Elsevier, London, 2005.
‘Bridget Cleary and Cornish Studies: Folklore, Story-telling and Modernity, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: Thirteen, University of Exeter Press, 2005, pp.194-215.
‘Richard Trevithick’, in Christopher Matthews (ed.), The New Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004.
‘Arthur Woolf’, in Matthews (ed.), The New Dictionary of National Biography, 2004.
‘John Basset’, in Matthews (ed.), The New Dictionary of National Biography, 2004.
‘Robert Were Fox’, in Matthews (ed.), The New Dictionary of National Biography, 2004.
‘“I was before my time, caught betwixt and between”: A.L. Rowse and the Writing of Cornish and British History’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: Eleven, 2003, pp.11-39.
‘Industrial Celts? Cornish Identity in the Age of Technological Prowess’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: Ten, 2002, pp.116-135.
‘The Cornish’, in James Jupp (ed.), The Australian People, Cambridge University Press, 2002.
‘“Vote Labor, and Rid South Australia of a Danger to the Purity of Our Race”: The Cornish Radical Tradition in South Australia, 1900-1939’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: Nine, 2001, pp.173-203.
'Cornish’, in Jan Wirrer (ed.), Minderheiten-Und Regionalsprachen in Europa, Westedeutscher Verlag, Wiesbaden, 2000, pp.97-104.
‘Cornish’, in Glanville Price (ed.), Languages in Britain and Ireland, Blackwell, Oxford, 2000, pp.109-119.
‘Re-inventing Celtic Australia’, in Amy Hale and Philip Payton (eds.), New Directions in Celtic Studies, University of Exeter Press, Exeter, 2000, pp.108-125.
‘The Ideology of Language Revival in Modern Cornwall’, in Ronald Black, William Gillies and Roibeard O’Maolaliagh (eds.), Celtic Connections: Proceedings of the 10th International Congress of Celtic Studies Vol.!, Tuckwell, Edinburgh, 1999, pp. 395-424.
‘Ethnicity in Western Europe Today’, in Karl Cordell (ed.), Ethnicity and Democratisation in the New Europe, Routledge, London, 1999, pp. 24-36.
‘The Retreat of Cornish’, in Roger Kain and William Ravenhill (eds.), Historical Atlas of South West England, University of Exeter Press, 1999, pp.267-268.
‘Cornish’, in Glanville Price (ed.), Encyclopedia of European Languages, Blackwell, Oxford, 1998, pp.99-103.
‘Identity, Ideology and Language in Modern Cornwall’, in Hildegard L.C. Tristram (ed.), The Celtic Englishes, Universitsverlad C. Winter, Heidelberg, 1997, pp.100-122.
‘Cornwall in Context: The New Cornish Historiography’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: Five, 1997, pp9-20.
(with F. Roff Rayner and F.L. Harris>), ‘Cornwall Education Week: Seventy Years On’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: Five, 1997, pp. 180-187.
‘Paralysis and Revival: The Reconstruction of Celtic-Catholic Cornwall 1890-1945’, in Ella Westland (ed.), Cornwall: The Cultural Construction of Place, Patten Press, Penzance, 1997, pp.25-29.
‘Inconvenient Peripheries: Ethnic Identity and the United Kingdom Estate – The Cases of Protestant Ulster and Cornwall’, in Iain Hampsher-Monk and Jeffrey Stanyer (eds.), Contemporary Political Studies, Political Studies Association of the UK, Belfast, 1996, pp. 395-408.
‘Which Cornish? Ideology and Language Revival in Post-War Cornwall’, in Mariead Nic Craith (ed.), Watching One’s Tongue: Aspects of Romance and Celtic Languages, Liverpool University Press, 1996, pp. 111-135.
‘Derelict Land and Cultural Identity: The Case of Cornwall’, in Philip Payton, Nicholas Johnson and Adrian Spalding (eds.), The Conservation Value of Metalliferous Mine Sites in Cornwall, Institute of Cornish Studies/Cornwall Archaeological Unit, Truro, 1996, pp. 9-14.
‘Royal Naval Engineering College: A History’, in Steven Haines and Richard Clarke (eds.), The Royal Naval Engineering College, Manadon: A Commemoration, Institute of Marine Engineers, London, 1996, pp. 26-60.
‘Reforming Thirties and Hungry Forties: The Genesis of Cornwall’s Emigration Trade’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: Four, 1996, pp. 107-127.
(with >Paul Thornton)>, ‘The Great Western Railway and the Cornish-Celtic Revival’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: Three, 1995, pp. 83-103.
>'Cornish Emigration in Response to Changes in the International Copper Market in the 1860s’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: Three, 1995, pp. 60-82.
‘Ethnic Consciousness’, in Michael Foley (ed.), Ideas That Shape Politics, Manchester University Press, 1994, pp172-180.
‘Naval Education and Training’, in Michael Duffy, Stephen Fisher, Basil Greenhill, David Starkey and Joyce Youings (ed.), The New Maritime History of Devon Vol II, Conway, London, 1994, pp. 191-203.
‘Labour Failure and Liberal Tenacity: Radical Politics and Cornish Political Culture, 1880-1939’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: Two, 1994, pp. 83-95.
(with Allen Ivey), ‘Towards a Cornish Identity Theory’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: Two, 1994, pp.151-163.
‘Post-War Cornwall: A Suitable Case for Treatment?’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornwall Since the War: The Contemporary History of a European Region, Institute of Cornish Studies/Dyllansow Truran, Redruth, 1993, pp. 6-21.
‘Territory and Identity’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornwall Since the War, 1993, pp.224-252.
(with Bernard Deacon), ‘The Ideology of Language Revival’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornwall Since the War, 1993, pp. 271-290.
(with Bernard Deacon), ‘Re-inventing Cornwall: Culture Change on the European Periphery’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: One, 1993, pp. 62-79.
‘”… a concealed envy against the English”: A Note on the Aftermath of the 1497 Rebellions in Cornwall’, in P. Payton (ed.), Cornish Studies: One, 1993, pp.241-248.
(with Victoria Syme), ‘Eastern Europe: Economic Transition and Ethnic Tension., in Michael Pugh (ed.), European Security: Towards 2000, Manchester University Press, 1992, pp. 86-103.;
‘The Great Migration’, in Cornish Studies for Schools, Cornwall County Council, Truro, 1992, pp. 58-59.
‘Quarrying: Granite and Slate’, in Cornish Studies for Schools, Cornwall County Council, Truro, 1992, pp. 67-69.
‘The Cornish’, in James Jupp (ed.), The Australian Peoples: An Encyclopedia of the Nations, Its Origins and Peoples, Australian National University/Angus Robertson, Sydney,1988, pp326-334.
Working Papers
‘”An English Cross-country Railway”: Rural England and the Cultural Reconstruction of the Somerset and Dorset Railway’, in Colin Dival (ed.), Railway, Place and Identity: Working Papers in Railway Studies No.2, Institute of Railway Studies, University of York, 1997, pp17-24.
‘The Cornish Problem: Prospects for Devolution in the Duchy’, Proceedings of the ECTARC Conference on Regionalism in Europe, European Centre for Traditional and Regional Cultures, Llangollen, 1997, 4pp.
Electronic articles
‘The Cornish and the Dominions: A Case Study in Sub-state Imperial Contact’, in Fred Nash and Jim Bulpitt (eds.), The Dominion Concept Conference, University of Warwick, July 1998, Political Studies Association/British International Studies Association, 1998.
Biography
Philip Payton joined the University of Exeter in October 1991 as Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies, then based in Redruth. He was promoted Professor in 2000. Previously, Philip served in the Royal Navy for a dozen years (including an appointment as Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and International Affairs at the Royal Naval College Greenwich), and continued in a part-time Reservist capacity for a further eighteen years. On leaving the University of Exeter in December 2013, he was appointed Emeritus Professor of Cornish & Australian Studies. He is currently Professor of History at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia.
Professor Payton has held visiting appointments at Warwick University, the Australian National University, the University of Tasmania, and the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash university. He is an Hon. Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 2017 he was voted 'South Australian Historian of the Year' by the History Council of South Australia.
