Philip Payton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Philip Payton is professor of Cornish Studies at the University of Exeter and Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies at Tremough, just outside Penryn. He obtained his first degree from the University of Bristol in 1975 and returned to Australia (where he had lived as a child) to read for a doctorate at the University of Adelaide, choosing as his theme the Cornish in Australia. In 1979 he joined the Royal Navy as an officer in the education specialisation, and in 1989 was appointed Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and International Affairs at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.
In 1990 he gained a second doctorate, from the University of Plymouth, for a study of modern Cornwall from a centre-periphery perspective. He joined the University of Exeter as Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies, then situated at Pool, near Redruth, in 1991. He was promoted Reader in 1995 and Professor in 2000. He is a Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society and the Royal Society of Arts.
Amongst his many book and articles are the acclaimed Cornwall - A History, first published in 1996 and updated in 2004, which remains the only modern authoritative history of Cornwall. Other titles include, The Cornish Miner in Australia (1984), The Making of Modern Cornwall (1992), and Cornwall Since the War (1993). He also edits the acclaimed paperback series, Cornish Studies. His other interests include the politics of ethnicity and territorial identity.
Payton was made a Bard of Gorseth Kernow in 1981, taking the Bardic name Car Dyvresow ('Friend of Exiles').
