When William Wordsworth was 28 he started to write a vast
autobiographical poem – later to be named by his wife –
‘The Prelude’. The work documents his life, is the only
existing reference to his early childhood and was not published
until after his death.
William Wordsworth (1770 – 1850) was born in Cockermouth
and educated at Hawkshead Grammar School, during which time he
lodged with Ann Tyson. Wordsworth left the Lake District to attend
Cambridge University and after subsequent travel in Europe he
returned to Grasmere where he and his sister Dorothy rented Dove
Cottage. After his marriage to Mary Hutchinson the three resided at
Dove Cottage until their growing family necessitated a move to a
larger house. They moved to Allan Bank with Coleridge as a
permanent guest and subsequently to the Old Rectory opposite St
Oswald’s church in Grasmere, where their two youngest
children died. Their final home was Rydal Mount where Wordsworth
lived out the remainder of his life, during which time he succeeded
Robert Southey as Poet Laureate and ultimately died from a common
cold in 1850. He is buried, along with many other members of his
family, and Coleridge’s son, in the South-East corner of
Saint Oswald’s church in Grasmere, one of the most visited
shrines in the world.
In his youth Wordsworth wrote one of the earliest guides to the
Lake District, which ran into many reprints and undoubtedly
produced the interest that caused a lot of the problems he saw in
popular tourism. His work as a poet, along with Coleridge and
Southey (the Lakeland Poets) changed the Lakes in that the poets
became and have remained a centre of the tourism they so much
deplored. As his beloved Lake District turned from Wilderness to
Elysium Wordsworth penned the lines ‘Is there no spot of
English ground secure from rash assault?’ so often since
quoted by conservationists to this day. Wordsworth used these words
to attack the proposed Kendal to Windermere Railway line. The birth
of the camera, which coincided with the death of Wordsworth,
brought this ‘Wilderness’ much publicity and coupled
with improved transport stimulated tourism – the industry
that soon became and remains paramount today.
This series charts some of the milestones in the life of the
poet William Wordsworth, the main Biography appearing on ‘The
Daffodils’ cache listing only.
Caches in this series:
The Daffodils - The Wordsworth Way
W.W. Memorial/Mire House - The Wordsworth Way
The Old School/Blelham Tarn - The Wordsworth Way
Dove Cottage/Rock of Names - The Wordsworth Way
The Old Rectory/Allan Bank - The Wordsworth Way
The Coffin Trail/Rydal Mount - The Wordsworth Way
Dora’s Field - The Wordsworth Way
Grisedale Tarn - The Wordsworth Way
Diana's Looking Glass - The Wordsworth Way
