A Cornish Colony In France

The diaspora of the Cornish people around the globe was a remarkable phenomenon, second only in European population terms to the great migration from Ireland. A small but notable connection was made in France. This is the history of miners and their families from Cornwall who travelled to an unlikely destination in France to work the mines located in the Auvergne district of France in the town of Pontgibaud. From the 1850s to the end of that century those Cornish families became integrated with their hosts and their descendants spread around the world. This book explores both the progress of the mines and a biographical glimpse of those Cornish families.