Professor Philip Payton presented on 21 March 2017 'John Verran: How a Cornish copper miner from Moonta, became Premier of South Australia and thus leader of the State’s first majority Labor government.' In 1910 John Verran, a Cornish copper miner from Moonta, became Premier of South Australia and thus leader of the State’s first majority Labor government. It was also the first Labor government in the world. This talk examines Verran's rise from humble background to high office, taking in along the way the importance of his Cornish mining background, the significance of his Methodist faith, and his early involvement with trade unionism and the Labor movement on northern Yorke Peninsula. It also discusses the mixed fortunes of the 1910-1911 Labor government, and John Verran’s subsequent fall from grace. Philip Payton is Professor of History at Flinders University, as well as Adjunct Professor in the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University and Emeritus Professor of Cornish and Australian Studies at the University of Exeter, where he was Director of the Institute of Cornish Studies from 1991 to 2013. He is an Hon. Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Recent books include The Maritime History of Cornwall (ed. with Alston Kennerley & Helen Doe; University of Exeter Press, 2014), Australia in the Great War (Robert Hale, London, 2015), and One and All: Labor and the Radical Tradition in South Australia (Wakefield Press, Adelaide, 2016). This free public lecture was part of the History Trust of South Australia's Talking History series. For upcoming events visit: history.sa.gov.au/whats-on/events/