Little Cornwall created on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula where miners bought their technology and culture

The Moonta copper mine, from 1861 on South Australia's Yorke Peninsula, was the catalyst for the whole way of life to be transplanted from England  by Cornish miners and their families.

South Australia’s Burra and Moonta were rated places of outstanding Australian national heritage significance where Cornish mining technology, skills and culture were shown to a high degree.

With Cornwall in 1840s England in a depression, the discovery of copper in South Australia opened opportunities on the other side of the world. After Burra’s monster mine in South Australia’s mid north operated from 1845 to 1877, copper was discovered in 1861 in the Moonta area on Yorke Peninsula, 165 kilometres northwest of Adelaide.

Into the 21st Century, Moonta remained one of the towns making up Little Cornwall. Its rich mine was famous for the owners being the first in Australia to pay one million pounds in dividends. At its peak, the mine employed nearly 1,700 men and boys. The Moonta town was started to service the mine and by 1875 the district had about 12,000 people as the largest centre outside Adelaide. Moonta’s output from the Copper Kingdom made Australia one of the world’s major sources and exporters of copper.

Mining for copper required miners who knew how to set up and systematically work mines in a way that gave the best return for the effort and cost. Until the 1890s, all work underground at Moonta mine was done by manual labour in about 80 miles of shaft and levels. Getting from one level to another meant climbing step ladders in shafts that went as deep as 750 metres. Ore was hauled to the surface by horse whims and the engine houses were built to pump water from the mine. (Horse whims were machines powered by a horse using pulleys and cables wound around a wide drum). Cornish mining system had developed over generations and was ideally suited to these conditions.

Henry Richard Hancock, famous Moonta mine manager for 34 years, made many practical improvements to mine operations. He introduced a revolutionary steam engine to replace hand worked pumps, winches and ore crushers. By 1865, tramways had reduced barrow work and, by 1866, a railway replaced wagon teams carrying ore to nearby smelters. His main invention, the Hancock jig, improved ore processing.

Religion played a strong part in holding the mining community together through the hardships of work, illness and difficult living conditions. Hancock, a devout Wesleyan, worked to get minimum wages for miners, as well as a brass band, library and reading room and compulsory night school for boys from the mine’s sorting tables. He also encouraged cricket, football, chess and glee clubs and mutual improvement societies.

The miners transported their skills and way of life to the completely different environment. One of the traditions they brought with them was the Cornish pasty, a hearty and nourishing meal of meat, potatoes and onions wrapped in a thick pastry. A good pasty could survive being dropped down a mine and miners holding it by the crust stopped it being contaminated by dirty hands. Popular legend has it that the women workers or wives would call out “Oggie, Oggie, Oggie” and wait for the reply “Oi, Oi, Oi!” before dropping the pasties down. (Oggie was short for hoggan, the Cornish word for pastry.)

Little Cornwall residents continued to take great pride in their traditions and heritage, celebrated through festivals along the Copper Coast.