More than Miners

Jan Lokan has Cornish origins traced back to Crowan in the early 1600s. Her forebears were ‘tinners’, then copper miners. Her great-grandfather brought his family to Moonta Mines in 1864, but soon opened a much-needed school for miners’ children. Jan is an Adelaide University Arts graduate and later gained a PhD in Education in Ottawa, Canada. Her working life was in educational research, first in Canada and then with the Australian Council for Educational Research in Melbourne. She has many publications in that field and was awarded a Centennial Medal for services to educational research in 2003. In retirement she has followed her interests in Cornish history, organising the Cornish Association of South Australia’s biennial history seminars for 15 years. She became a bard of the Cornish Gorsedh in 2018, with the name Myrgh Golsery (‘daughter of Goldsworthy’), using the 17th-century form of the name.

Philip Payton is Emeritus Professor of Cornish & Australian Studies at the University of Exeter, where he was formerly Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies, and is Professor of History at Flinders University as well as Honorary Professor at the Australian National University. He is the author or editor of more than sixty books, most on Cornish themes. Recent volumes include Cornwall in the Age of Rebellion: 1490-1690 and Vice-Regal: A history of the Governors of South Australia. He is an Honorary Life Member of the Cornish Association of South Australia, and is a bard of the Cornish Gorsedh. His bardic name Car Dyvresow means ‘friend of exiles’.