Parading the Cornish subject: Methodist Sunday schools in west Cornwall, c. 1830-1930

Reproduced with permission of the publisher. Copyright © 2007 Elsevier. NOTICE: This is the author’s version of a work accepted for publication by Elsevier. Changes resulting from the publishing process, including peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting and other quality control mechanisms, may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Journal of Historical Geography, Vol 33 (1), 2007, pp. 24-44. DOI:10.1016/j.jhg.2006.02.002This paper explores the historical relationships between Methodist Sunday school tea treats and parades and the formation of religious identity in west Cornwall between c. 1830 and 1930. Through these ritual activities, people were entrained into the symbolic identity-forming apparatus of Methodist faith and practice. Moving beyond the spaces of school rooms and chapels, the paper focuses on the organisation, the use of public space and the territorial significance of annual tea treats and parades in the nurturing and maintenance of a Methodist constituency. In so doing, the paper draws on work in the history of Nonconformity, geographies of religion and the historical geography of parades to conduct a critical analysis of tea treats and parades as ritual, spectacle and carnival