He was born in 1953 in Sussex. His mother was Cornish, from the Helston area. His father was a merchant seaman, then businessman and academic.[2] Payton spent much of his childhood in Sussex[3] and attended Haywards Heath Grammar School.[4] Active in Mebyon Kernow (the Party for Cornwall) as a teenager, he began his writing career in articles on Cornish history and politics in journals such as New Cornwall and Cornish Nation. 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, completing this in 1978.[5]
In 1989 was appointed Senior Lecturer in the Department of History and International Affairs at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich.
Until his retirement from the service, he held the rank of commander in the Royal Naval Reserve and has seen active service when attached to the Army in Bosnia and Croatia in 1993 and more later aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Ark Royal in 2003 during the Iraq War.[2][6] He finally retired from the Navy in 2008.
Academic career
This section needs to be updated. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(July 2019)
Amongst his many book and articles are Making Moonta: The Invention of Australia's Little Cornwall (2007), A.L. Rowse and Cornwall: A Paradoxical Patriot (2005), and the acclaimed Cornwall – A History, first published in 1996 and updated in 2004, which remains a major 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 edited the annual book series, Cornish Studies, published by University of Exeter Press, for twenty years, and was editor-in-chief of the Millennium Book for Cornwall Kernow Bys Vyken! – Cornwall Forever!, published by Cornwall Heritage Trust and distributed free to every schoolchild in Cornwall in 2000.
His other research interests in Modern Cornish history include Cornish emigration; ethnicity and territorial politics; and centre-periphery relations.[9]
In 2010, he completed a book on John Betjeman and Cornwall: 'The Celebrated Cornish Nationalist' (University of Exeter Press), and is editing (with Helen Doe and Alston Kennerley) a Maritime History of Cornwall. Among his other books are Regional Australia and the Great War: "The Boys from Old Kio" (University of Exeter Press, 2012), and a History of Sussex, published in 2017.[10]
Payton, P. (1984). Cornish Carols from Australia / A New Edition of "The Christmas Welcome". Vol. (Introduction). Trewirgie: Dyllansow Truran. ISBN0-907566-92-8.
Payton, P. (1999). The Cornish eclipse 1649–1751: An illustrated lecture. Commissioned by Artys war anow Kernow (Verbal Arts Cornwall) for the Daphne du Maurier Festival of Arts & Literature.
Payton, P. (1987). The Cornish farmer in Australia or, Australian adventure : Cornish colonists and the expansion of Adelaide and the South Australian agricultural frontier. Redruth: Dyllansow Truran. ISBN1-85022-029-8.
Payton, P (1984). The Cornish miner in Australia : (cousin Jack down under). Redruth: Dyllansow Truran. ISBN0-907566-51-0.
Payton, P. (1999). The Cornish overseas. Fowey: Alexander Associates. ISBN1-899526-95-1. Rev. & updated ed., Fowey: Cornwall Editions, 2005, ISBN1-904880-04-5
Payton, P. (2002). Cornwall's history: An introduction. Redruth: Tor Mark Press. ISBN0-85025-392-6.
Payton, P. (1992). The Making of Modern Cornwall: Historical experience and the persistence of "difference". Redruth: Dyllansow Truran. ISBN1-85022-064-6.
Payton, P. (1997). "Re-Inventing Celtic Australia: Notions of Celtic Identity From the Colonial Period to the Era of Multi-Culturalism". Australian Studies. 12 (2).
^ abcdCornwall Today Vol. 3 No. 1 p. 68: "Interview with Dr Philip Payton by Alan Murton" (?1991): "Philip Payton was born in Sussex in 1953. Cornish on his mother's side, his family has been rooted in the Constantine-Helston area for generations, although nineteenth-century emigrant relations roamed as far as Mexico, America and South Africa. He has spent most of his life in Cornwall, although as a child he lived for a time in both Australia and Sussex (where he attended Haywards Heath Grammar School). His mother was Hazel Williams (b. Constantine 1923, d. Falmouth 2004), and his father Thomas Payton was a merchant seaman before going on to a distinguished business and academic career. He lives in Falmouth. The Payton family originated in Co. Mayo and Co. Roscommon, moving to England in the 1850s to join the Liverpool-Irish community, though later converting to Protestantism and moving south'. (see F. B. Payton, "Notes on the Ó Peatáins of Donegal, Mayo and Roscommon", in: The Irish Genealogist; Vol.4, No.4, November 1971, pp. 303–07
^Modern Cornwall: The Changing Nature of Peripherality: A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements of the Council For National Academic Awards For the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, (1989).
^"New Cornish studies professor appointed: 'This is a huggnificant appointment – for the institute, its staff, and for Cornwall'" Western Morning News Tuesday, 1 August 2000.