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The South African gold and diamond mine drew miners from Cornwall as it did from across the world. The emigration to South Africa took place later than that to America and Australia/New Zealand. It was in the 1880s and 1890s that new mineral discoveries were drawing miners to the Cape. The diamond fields of Kimberley and the gold fields of the Transvaal were a big draw for the miners from Cornwall who had already riddled America and Australia with holes. The difference in South Africa was that Instead of the hard rock they were used to, they were drilling through quartz, which gives off a fine dust that acts like ground glass in the lungs. 'Miners' complaint' killed thousands, and many Cornish miners returned home rich only to find they didn't have the years left to enjoy their relative prosperity, dying early with the breath squeezed out of them. South Africa's capital Johannesburg owes as much to the Cornish as any other nationality, and there is a huge residential area in the south of the city that is still known as New Redruth. It's street names - Truro, Liskeard, Bodmin, St Austell, Camborne - bear testimony to the Cousin Jacks who came to South Africa to search for the 'golden mother lode'. Picture courtesy of Harry Pascoe (see issue 26 of Cornish World magazine) |