Cornish miners took their skills for working in hard-rock, and applied them to the diamond-fields around Johannesburg in the 1870s.  Many Cornish miners also swelled the gold rushes in the 1880s.

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Many miners travelled overseas and left families here in Cornwall, sending money back to support them - and it was the taxes imposed by the South African government on these monies that led to rising tensions before the Second Boer War.