Britishness, what it is and what it could be, is now high on both ...

Moreover, in Cornwall claims to non-Engl<strong>is</strong>hness have always <strong>be</strong>en contested. Unlike
Wales, where the Welsh language predominated as a vernacular into the nineteenth
century, Cornwall was a l<strong>and</strong> of two tongues from an early date, w<strong>it</strong>h Engl<strong>is</strong>h <strong>be</strong>ing the
language spoken by the major<strong>it</strong>y of <strong>it</strong>s inhab<strong>it</strong>ants from perhaps as early as the fourteenth
century. Th<strong>is</strong> produced understated internal cultural div<strong>is</strong>ions w<strong>it</strong>hin Cornwall. For
example, in west Cornwall surnames were not unambiguously hered<strong>it</strong>ary until the
sixteenth or seventeenth century, much later than in east Cornwall but mirroring the
practice in Wales. 138 In similar fashion, the presence of Br<strong>it</strong><strong>is</strong>h saints was more common
in the Corn<strong>is</strong>h-speaking west than in the east. In the latter d<strong>is</strong>tricts Cornwall was much
more like Devon, w<strong>it</strong>h a far lower frequency of Br<strong>it</strong>tonic saints. 139 Th<strong>is</strong> cultural plural<strong>is</strong>m
reinforced <strong>it</strong>s multiple ident<strong>it</strong>ies. John Trev<strong>is</strong>a, originally from mid-Cornwall <strong>and</strong> famed
for h<strong>is</strong> translation into Engl<strong>is</strong>h of Ranulph Higden’s Polychronicon, felt the need as early
as the 1300s to argue that Cornwall was firmly part of Engl<strong>and</strong>. 140 Trev<strong>is</strong>a, w<strong>it</strong>h h<strong>is</strong>
special interest in the Engl<strong>is</strong>h language <strong>and</strong> from a vantage point as Vicar of Berkeley in
Gloucestershire, may have <strong>be</strong>en atypical. But half a millennium later Franc<strong>is</strong> Harvey, a
Method<strong>is</strong>t lay preacher from the engineering centre of Hayle in the heart of Cornwall’s
industrial region, wrote a rambling eulogy to h<strong>is</strong> homel<strong>and</strong> after emigrating to South
Africa in the 1850s. Harvey’s polemic d<strong>is</strong>played a passionate pride in h<strong>is</strong> Corn<strong>is</strong>hness,
but at the same time firmly rejected statements that Cornwall was “not of Engl<strong>and</strong>”. Th<strong>is</strong>
he claimed was a sl<strong>and</strong>er put about by Cockneys: “Cornwall may justly <strong>be</strong> proud … in
the glorious elements w<strong>it</strong>h which she has served <strong>and</strong> aided, <strong>and</strong> honoured every valuable
interests of the nation; of <strong>be</strong>ing in truth if ‘not of’ yet superior by far to Engl<strong>and</strong>, if really
‘not of <strong>it</strong>’”. 141 From Harvey’s perspective wh<strong>is</strong>pers of “non-Engl<strong>is</strong>hness” were
tantamount to a conspiracy that denied Cornwall the recogn<strong>it</strong>ion <strong>it</strong> so richly deserved at
the forefront of Engl<strong>is</strong>h h<strong>is</strong>tory, <strong>be</strong>cause of <strong>it</strong>s role in industrial<strong>is</strong>ation.
Conclusion
Harvey shows that <strong>it</strong> was qu<strong>it</strong>e possible to express an intense Corn<strong>is</strong>h ident<strong>it</strong>y but speak
from w<strong>it</strong>hin an Engl<strong>is</strong>h ethno-h<strong>is</strong>tory. W<strong>it</strong>hin one d<strong>is</strong>course the terr<strong>it</strong>ory of Cornwall was
“of Engl<strong>and</strong>” but from the other the Corn<strong>is</strong>h people were a Celtic nation <strong>and</strong> “not of
Engl<strong>and</strong>”. 142 The Corn<strong>is</strong>h ident<strong>it</strong>y <strong>is</strong> the outcome of a h<strong>is</strong>torical process which has both
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