Dr Sharron Schwartz presents: Mexico's 'Little Cornwall'

Talk celebrating 200 years of the Cornish diaspora in Mexico as part of the celebrations taking place in Redruth and Real del Monte and Pachuca.

Dr Sharron Schwartz will be giving a talk on Mexico's 'Little Cornwall'. Both in-person and online livestreamed event.

Come join us at this free event, learning about the impact of Cornish mining on the other side of the world and our shared heritage with Mexico and visit our newly re-opened Mineral Gallery!

In 1824 the first party of Cornish mineworkers arrived in Real del Monte-Pachuca to rehabilitate flooded and abandoned colonial silver mines as employees of the British Real del Monte Mining Company. They founded the first Cornish community in the Latin Americas and began a process of labour migration that persisted well into the twentieth century. The Cornish introduced the machinery of the industrial revolution in the form of high-pressure steam engines, initiated cricket and football leagues, spread their Methodist faith, eventually married into local families and helped to popularise the Cornish pasty. Two hundred years later, we celebrate the enduring heritage links with Mexico’s ‘Little Cornwall'.

Sharron Schwartz is born and bred in Redruth, and received her doctorate at the University of Exeter on the Cornish in Latin America. She set up the Cornish Global Migration Programme in the late-1990s, was the documentary researcher for the Cornish Mining World Heritage Site Bid and Leverhulme Research Fellow in Migration Studies at the Institute of Cornish Studies. She is the author of Mining a Shared Heritage: Mexico’s ‘Little Cornwall’ (2011), and The Cornish in Latin America: Cousin Jack and the New World (2016). She has visited various mine sites in Mexico and is a founder member of the Cornish Mexican Cultural Society.

Entry from 5:30pm and talk to begin at 6pm

The talk will be an hour long and there will be a Q&A!

Refreshments and bar available

Whole museum open

Chill out zone available

Please book the right ticket - 'Online' or 'In person'

Accessibility and pre visit information

Ticket will include entry to the event and evening entry to the museum. A bar will also be open on the night, serving wine, soft drinks, tea, coffee, and snacks for an additional cost.

Host or Publisher Royal Cornwall Museum