Category: Cumbrian people
Thurnam brothers, Carlisle
Thurnam brothers, Carlisle Like Goldilocks, sometimes there is too little information on an individual to make a blog post. Sometimes, there is just enough. And sometimes, there is too much. In the ca... Read More
Edward Irving – forgotten Santa
Edward Irving – forgotten Santa Should you pay a visit to St Mary’s Church, Stapleton, on Christmas Day, and manage to find the grave of Edward Irving, you would be partaking in an apparently long... Read More
Westmorland girls – be warned!
Westmorland girls were given some sound advice, from bitter experience, in May 1874, by a young woman who had learned the hard way. While looking for something else, I chanced upon a notice in the Pen... Read More
Countess Ossalinsky
Ambling around Beacon Edge cemetery a few weeks ago (visiting family graves, and taking photos of others to upload to FindaGrave), I chanced upon a Celtic cross with a faded inscription: Countess Bori... Read More
Richard Oyes dodgy overseer
Richard Oyes, the dodgy overseer Richard Oyes, of Whitehaven, is the elephant in the room of an interesting court case, in 1796. For while he was the reason five magistrates strayed from the path of v... Read More
Bishop Thomas Smith & his sister
Bishop Thomas Smith was a key figure in the history of Carlisle Cathedral. What isn’t widely known is that he had a sister. Thomas Smith led quite a life for ‘an Appleby lad’ – teaching at Oxf... Read More
Carlisle Journal & Thomas Gibson Cant
The Carlisle Journal, Carlisle’ first newspaper, was founded in 1798. A liberal weekly, it advocated civil and religious liberty and free political comment (source). And in 1873, some of its comment... Read More
Isabella Dalton – an unusual life
My post on Wilson Towers includes the information that for 14 weeks in 1904, he employed a housekeeper called Isabella Dalton – who then went back to live in Wigton Workhouse. Her story is unusual, ... Read More