Welcome to the Institute of Cornish Studies (ICS)

We exist to support and foster academic research on Cornwall and to carry out research projects on Cornwall and its past. The ICS was formed in 1970 as a unique collaborative venture between Cornwall County Council and the University of Exeter. At that time its first Director, Professor Charles Thomas, defined its field as ‘the study of all aspects of man and his handiwork in the regional setting (Cornwall and Scilly), past, present and future. The development of society, industry and the landscape in our fast changing world is as much of concern … as the history of those vast topics in the recent and remote past.’

While this ambitious agenda remains, during the time of the current Director, Professor Philip Payton, the attention of our staff has become more focused on historical studies since 1800, this reflecting the ICS’s position since 2003 as part of the University’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences (HuSS) and since 2010 as part of the College of Humanities.

The Institute of Cornish Studies offers supervision for research degrees. Currently, MPhil/PhD students at the Institute are researching in the areas of Cornish politics, sport and identity, Quakers in Cornwall, music, Methodism, Romany Gypsies in Cornwall, and the Dock Labour Scheme.

Latest books by ICS staff

Bernard Deacon, Cornwall: a concise history, University of Wales Press. This surveys Cornish history and traces the creative tensions produced by the dual influences of its English and non-English past, addressing its current paradox as nation, region and county all wrapped into one.

Philip Payton, Making Moonta: The invention of Australia's Little Cornwall, University of Exeter Press. This book relates the story of Moonta and its special place in Cornish transnational identity. The book charts the rise and fall of its copper mines after 1860 and the role of institutions such as Methodism and trade unions in fostering the Cornishness at the centre of the Moonta myth.

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