Medieval Cornwall 

Industrial Cornwall 

Modern Cornwall

From rebellion to riches

During the civil war, the Cornish were unwilling to cross the Tamar, but the county was diminished by Cromwell's assault on its prerogatives and inhabitants. The Cornish steered clear of the Monmouth Rebellion of 1685, which attracted many from Devon and Somerset, although there was a veiled threat in 1688 that 'twenty thousand Cornishmen' might rise in protest at the imprisonment of Sir Jonathan Trelawny.

The 18th century saw Cornwall emerge from isolation to participate more fully in the economic and cultural life of the newly united Great Britain. New ideas and new technologies - as well as the role of the Cornish in colonising America - meant that there were new economic opportunities in Cornwall as it grew into an industrial county.

The Age of Steam

By 1720, some 6,000 tons of copper was being raised at Redruth and from 1700 to 1850 Cornwall appeared anything but a county suffering from marginalisation.

Because of the importance of tin and copper mines to the county's economy, experiments in drainage became increasingly necessary. The Newcomen steam engine was in use by 1716, and Richard Trevithick introduced a high pressure steam engine in 1812.

As the wealth of the county increased during the nineteenth century, so a new breed of Cornish industrialist and entrepreneur emerged, families such as the Fox's of Falmouth or William Praed of Trevethow, the banker who funded the Grand Union Canal, or the famous inventor, Sir Humphry Davy.