CORNISH families were heading north 150 years ago when Millom Newtown was born and places such as Askam, Barrow and Dalton were seeing rapid expansion.

If you got on a train from Penzance at 6.28am you would arrive at Barrow nine hours and 14 minutes later at 3.42pm – costing £203.60 for a single fare.

Most of the Victorian arrivals from the far west corner of England took weeks or even months to get here – by coastal shipping, on foot, or by rail – of they could afford it.

Many took jobs on the way – some mining iron in Cleator Moor or copper in Coniston before reaching Millom and Furness.

The peak period for people leaving Devon and Cornwall for the new towns and iron mines of West Cumberland and Furness was from the 1850s to the 1870s.

Towards the end of the 19th century many of them had moved again - taking their mining expertise even further afield to look for gold and diamonds in India, South Africa, North America and South America.

The 1911 census for Millom shows five people who were born in Penzance. Mary Wilson, born in 1843, was living at 69 Newton Street.

Richard Richards, born in 1847, was a mine worker living in Hodbarrow company housing at 4 Steel Green.

In 1861 he had been at St Buryan, Cornwall. His wife, Elizabeth Ann, had been born in Penzance in 1848. Mary Elizabeth Boundy was born in 1869 and lived at 35 King Street.

Her husband, Jim, was a miner who had been born in Lamplugh, near Ennerdale in West Cumberland. Elizabeth Billing was born in 1844 and lived at 3 Market Street with husband William, aged 75, who had been a miner born at Bodmin in Cornwall.

In Dalton, was John Fox, born in 1847, who was a cabinet maker at 12 Lime Street.

Also from Penzance was Martha Holmes, born in 1867, who lived at 31 Oxford Street, Ulverston with husband John, aged 44, an iron moulder born in Ulverston.

Mary Ann Rewenneck was born in Penzance in 1833 and lived at Ivy Cottage, Ulverston.

In 1871 she had been living at St Just, Cornwall. She died in 1922. Six Penzance natives were living in Barrow area in 1911.

Mary Polkinghorn was born in 1866 and lived at Stank Villa, Stank. John Colesnso, also born in 1866, lived at 56 Crellin Street and worked as a lace pedlar.

George Colenso, born in 1868, was a coal porter living at 60 Emlyn Street. John Nicolls, born in 1864, was a cutlery and tool dealer living at 19 Hill Road, Barrow.

James Henry Odgers, born in 1866, was a ship’s plater living at Moor Garth, Hawcoat Lane, Barrow.

Elizabeth Trescatheric, born in 1856, lived at 33 North Row, Roose, with husband John, 56, a Cornish-born labourer.

There is a Penzance Street in Moor Row in West Cumberland.

Penzance had its own mining and science school from 1890 to 1910 and is surrounded by tin mines – including the Levant Mine at Pendeen and Geevor Mine.

It was also the birthplace of Sir Humphry Davy whose development of the miner’s safety lamp saved thousands of lives in coal mines – such as those on the coast of West Cumberland – which had explosive underground gases.

A statue to his important role in mine safety stands at the top of Market Jew Street in Penzance.