By the mid-19th century, the same was increasingly true of Cornwall. Cut off by war from their favoured resorts in France and Italy, a generation of English tourists began taking holidays in Devon and Cornwall instead.īy the late 18th century, writers in Devon were praising their native county for its natural beauty and its ancient history, rather than for the wealth and industry of which their parents and grandparents had been so proud. This was especially true during the long years of the Napoleonic Wars which form the backdrop to the later Poldark novels. Ross Poldark’s struggles to keep his mine open and profitable are symptomatic of the economic difficulties experienced by the region as a whole during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.Īs south-western towns lost their traditional role as centres of trade and industry, their focus shifted increasingly to tourism. The era depicted in Poldark shows the region on the very tipping-point of this transition. This was primarily due to newly discovered tin and copper mines elsewhere in the world, leading to the large-scale emigration of Cornish miners to countries such as Mexico, Australia and Brazil. And while Cornwall’s mining industry survived well into the 20th century, it experienced repeated crises from the 1770s onwards. The rise of the mechanised cloth industry in England’s North and Midlands sent the south-western wool trade into serious decline. Cornwall’s tin and copper mines were some of the largest and most sophisticated in Europe, while the profits from the Cornwall and Devonshire wool trade helped make Exeter one of the biggest and richest cities in England.īy the mid-19th century however, much had changed. In the mid-18th century, Cornwall and Devon were major commercial and industrial centres. The real pivotal moment depicted by Poldark, however, is one of historical change in south-west England. This represents an impressive vote of confidence in the series, especially as season two will apparently not be repeating the famous “topless scything” scene which won the National Television Awards’ prize for TV Moment of the Year. In July 2016, the BBC announced the commissioning of a third season of costume drama Poldark, months before the second series was even due to be broadcast.
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