The Brazil - Cornwall connection

Paul Doble

Yesterday I had the opportunity to interview Paul Doble, a Cornishman living in West Tolgus who spent the first ten years of his life in the town of  Nova Lima in Minas Gerais, Brazil, where his father worked at the Morro Velho mine. His was one of about thirty Cornish families that were still resident in Brazil. In its heyday  the mine  was actually owned by an English company - the St John del Rey Mining Company and worked by a predominantly Cornish work force, the first of which had arrived there in the mid eighteen hundreds. A report in The West Briton from August 1922 reported that  '...twenty five miners from Redruth and district left the town yesterday morning for Brazil, where they have been engaged to work the St John del Rey Gold Mining Company's famous property at Morro Velho. The company at present employs a considerable number of Cornishmen'. I shall be posting more of the interview soon and will upload the recording to make it available to any one that is interested, but for the moment will simply announce that we thought it fitting that Paul and his wife are invited to be our special guests at The Mount Pleasant Eco Park concert on Saturday 24th September.

Nova Lima circa mid 1950's
(from Paul Doble's private collection)

Paul's parents at their house in Nova Lima
(from Paul Doble's private collection)