Cornish Pasty

If you haven't been to Moonta, you haven't travelled,' was one of the sayings of the Cornishmen who worked the copper mines of Moonta, South Australia. In Cornish Pasty (which combines the earlier Cornish Pasty and Cousin Jacks and Jennys) Oswald Pryor celebrates the wit of these miners, whose sturdy self-reliance and deep religious feeling were leavened with a quaint sense of humour.

Oswald Pryor knew the Cousin Jacks and Jennys of the area well, for he was born at Moonta in 1881, and worked in the mines from the age of thirteen, until 1923 when the mines closed. It was his father, Captain James Pryor, together with Captain H.R. Hancock, often the butt of the miners' wit, who helped develop the Moonta mines.

These cartoons, first published in The Bulletin, capture the atmosphere of the Cornish mining settlements, where close-knit communities kept up their old customs of carol-singing, church-going, and band music, while developing a fierce loyalty to their new surroundings.