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

southern shire … such pol<strong>it</strong>ic<strong>is</strong>able ident<strong>it</strong>y <strong>could</strong> hardly <strong>be</strong> found elsewhere”. Hastings’
account allows that the legacy of the Corn<strong>is</strong>h past still colours a more modern Corn<strong>is</strong>h
ident<strong>it</strong>y, although <strong>it</strong>s separate national<strong>it</strong>y merged into Engl<strong>is</strong>hness during <strong>and</strong> after the
sixteenth century. 38 H<strong>is</strong> interpretation <strong>is</strong> echoed by Michael Hechter who focuses on the
trading links of the Corn<strong>is</strong>h economy in the sixteenth century as proof of the early
integration of Cornwall into the Engl<strong>is</strong>h economy <strong>be</strong>fore 1600. 39 Occurring in a context
of the “relative absence of cultural d<strong>is</strong>crimination”, th<strong>is</strong> led to a diffusion process that
undermined a separate sense of Corn<strong>is</strong>h ethnic<strong>it</strong>y. Hechter may, however, overestimate
Cornwall’s early economic integration. Mark Overton et al conclude that <strong>it</strong>s integration
into the Engl<strong>is</strong>h economy took place later, in the seventeenth century, <strong>and</strong> that th<strong>is</strong> was
associated w<strong>it</strong>h deepening relative, <strong>and</strong> even absolute, poverty. “Cornwall experienced
relative deprivation <strong>and</strong> explo<strong>it</strong>ation more remin<strong>is</strong>cent of the Ir<strong>is</strong>h than the Engl<strong>is</strong>h
experience in th<strong>is</strong> period”. 40
In contrast, for other more ideal<strong>is</strong>t h<strong>is</strong>torians, pol<strong>it</strong>ical <strong>and</strong> economic integration did not
result in a loss of ident<strong>it</strong>y. On the contrary, they were the cause of a heightened sense of
cultural difference. Here attention focuses on the making of Corn<strong>is</strong>h ident<strong>it</strong>y at the period
Kr<strong>is</strong>han Kumar identifies as a “moment of Engl<strong>is</strong>h national<strong>is</strong>m” at the end of the
nineteenth century. 41 Th<strong>is</strong> also opened up the space for non-Engl<strong>is</strong>h imaginations <strong>and</strong>
Cornwall was constructed as “Celtic”, an example of the “<strong>be</strong>stowal of ident<strong>it</strong>y by the core
on the periphery”. 42 Specifically, art<strong>is</strong>ts attracted to west Cornwall by <strong>it</strong>s accessible
remoteness “helped to give Cornwall a v<strong>is</strong>ibil<strong>it</strong>y <strong>and</strong> representational ident<strong>it</strong>y … creating
<strong>it</strong>s iconography”. 43 Th<strong>is</strong> argument <strong>is</strong> echoed by Jane Korey who saw a “semantic space”
opening up w<strong>it</strong>h the decline of Cornwall’s staple industry – metal mining - after the
1860s. 44 Th<strong>is</strong> vacuum was promptly colon<strong>is</strong>ed by the romantic representations of
outsiders who viewed Cornwall as a prim<strong>it</strong>ive <strong>and</strong> liminal place, the oppos<strong>it</strong>e of <strong>and</strong>
antidote to urban civil<strong>is</strong>ation. 45 But <strong>what</strong> might <strong>be</strong> termed a “d<strong>is</strong>covery school” of
h<strong>is</strong>torical wr<strong>it</strong>ing on late Victorian <strong>and</strong> Edwardian Cornwall contains a strong dose of
that “sentimental imperial<strong>is</strong>m” that has <strong>be</strong>en seen as accompanying the romance of area
studies. 46 From such a perspective continu<strong>it</strong>ies of regional consciousness <strong>and</strong> the agency
of the Corn<strong>is</strong>h themselves are suppressed in a focus on the regional image <strong>and</strong> the
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