Cumberland & Westmorland, Ancient and Modern, <\/i>written in 1857, is still of interest today.<\/p>\n
Cumbrian Characters looks at its author, and Cumbrian place names<\/b>.<\/p>\n \u2018Human sacrifices were perhaps altogether unknown in Cumbria\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The intial reaction of \u2018phew, that\u2019s a relief\u2019 is tempered by \u2018hang on, he says PERHAPS\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The author of that line was J Sullivan, in Cumberland & Westmorland, Ancient and Modern, The People, Dialect, Superstitions and Customs.<\/i> A snappily titled book published in 1857.<\/p>\n J Sullivan also claims Cumbrian place names starting with \u2018ewe\u2019 or \u2018hu\u2019 imply a site where sheep were burned as a sacrifice. (Based on \u2018the Celtic aodh, pronounced hu, is a synonym for sacred fire and sheep\u2019). Though my reaction to that is that maybe the place names just relate to sheep!<\/p>\n Are the \u2018bells\u2019 in Cumbria from the festival of Beltane? The National Trust doesn\u2019t THINK so in the case of Catbells<\/a>\u00a0.<\/p>\n But then some pretty key places in Cumbria have controversy over their names.<\/p>\n Penrith sounds like the Welsh \u2018pen\u2019 (= head) and \u2018rhyd\u2019 (=ford). But as there was more than one Cumbric language, it\u2019s said it could also mean \u2018red town\u2019.<\/p>\n As for Carlisle\u2026 \u2018caer\u2019 in Welsh = \u2018fort\u2019. So Caer\u2026 whose fort? Caerleyl? Leol? Luel?<\/p>\n The Romans called it Luguvalium (the \u2018valium\u2019 relating to \u2018wall\u2019). I\u2019ve always imagined the Lugu bit was from the Celtic god<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But I have also seen suggested that the \u2018lugu\u2019 bit was from another Celtic word for \u2018fort\u2019\u2026 so maybe it wasn\u2019t anyone\u2019s fort as such, but actually \u2018Fort Fort\u2019!<\/p>\n After all, Torpenhow is claimed be Hill Hill Hill!<\/p>\n See here<\/a> for Carlisle. And here for Torpenhow<\/a>.<\/p>\n So who was J Sullivan, the author of Cumberland & Westmorland, Ancient and Modern <\/i>(etc)?<\/p>\n Well, for a start, he was Jereremiah Sullivan. He was a polyglot and a teacher. I am sticking with \u2018J Sullivan,\u2019 though, to help internet searchers.<\/p>\n At Christmas 1854, J Sullivan advertised in the Kendal Mercury<\/i> that:<\/p>\n J Sullivan has the honour of informing habitants of Kendal that at the close of the Christmas vacation, he will commence a day school for instruction in the usual course of English education, drawing, mathematics and the classical and modern languages, on moderate terms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The day school was \u2018in the room lately occupied as the library, in New Street, Kendal\u2019.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n In March 1855, for the sum of one shilling, you could buy a copy of his The People and Dialect of Cumberland and Westmorland. <\/i>Which had started out as articles he\u2019d had published in the Mercury.<\/p>\n The full version was announced the following year. J Sullivan hoped to \u2018collect all that can now be rescued from oblivion\u2019 (on the topics or superstitions and customs) and create an interest for others to investigate them further. It came out priced four shillings.<\/p>\n The reviews of\u00a0Cumberland & Westmorland, Ancient and Modern <\/i>were positive, if not exactly glowing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u2018An interesting contribution to Cumbrian literature\u2019 \u2013 Literary Gazette<\/p>\n \u2018There are several points on which we differ with Mr Sullivan, but as they are of minor importance, we shall not stay to question the correctness of his views\u2026 it cannot fail to become a work of reference, and on many points, an authority\u2019 \u2013 Ulverstone Advertiser<\/p>\n \u2018It has something in it for both general reader and antiquarian inquirer, and what is written for the former is very well adapted to make him of the latter\u2019 \u2013 Athenaeum.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Gentleman\u2019s Magazine<\/i> chided J Sullivan for his \u2018tendency to seek for derivations too exclusively in the Irish language\u2019 (Catbells, anyone? And he also thought Temple Sowerby was named for some lost stone circle) But the Magazine otherwise considered it \u2018a most suggestive and interesting book\u2019.<\/p>\n J Sullivan died in 1862. He was just 41. The Mercury\u2019s obituary says his book was very popular, and had been reviewed by many of the leading periodicals and newspapers of the day.<\/p>\n These included Blackwood magazine, which has a global circulation and gave the book no fewer than 26 columns in its March 1858 edition.<\/p>\n \u2018Of course, the Press was not unanimous in pronouncing the work as one which evinced a marvellous profundity of philosophical research and linguistic science\u2019.<\/p>\n The Mercury said it \u2018believed\u2019 J Sullivan had a considerable knowledge of \u2018the ancient languages of the East\u2019 and was \u2018quite familiar\u2019 with Hebrew, and the classical literature of Greece and Rome. He was well-read in Italian, French, and Spanish, and fluent in German.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n He also knew some of the \u2018Scandinavian stock\u2019 languages, and \u2018Cossack and Hungarian had not escaped him\u2019. He had also \u2018attempted Chinese\u2019.<\/p>\n He had worked for the \u2018periodical press\u2019 in London, before moving to Penrith, where he taught at a private school and gave outside tuition. This included being a private tutor to the children of a Dr Nicholson.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When that came to an end, in 1855, he\u2019d moved to Kendal. But his new school there (has to be the one in the former library) wasn\u2019t an immediate success. So he returned to the private school and tuition in Penrith.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Poor J Sullivan had \u2018the misfortune to lose a leg\u2019, seemingly while in London, and \u2018was tortured\u2019 by rheumatism.<\/p>\n His health had completely broken down (the Mercury reported) about a fortnight before his death.<\/p>\n The Mercury also thought that if \u2018the many gentlemen possessing influence in high quarters and who knew his circumstances had put their shoulders to the wheel, it might not now be our painful duty to record his death in the prime of life.\u2019<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the Penrith Observer <\/i>said that remarkably, he\u2019d only taken up modern languages in the mid 1850s, and had been limited by the time contraints of work, a paucity of libraries, and his poor health.<\/p>\n The turn-out was said to be large and respectable \u2013 but would have been larger had news of his death been more widely known.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The boys whom he had taught assembled in the schoolroom. When \u2018the remains of their late teacher were brought out\u2019, they walked two abreast, with his relations, to the church and to the grave.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mourners included R G Hindson, whose son and daughter were thought to have been the last private pupils J Sullivan had attended. And Miss Simpson, daughter of John Simpson, banker, who had also been one of his pupils.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Jeremiah Sullivan was born in Ireland. He never married. In 1861, in Penrith, his married sister Joanna Hill was with him on the night of the census.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There is a reference to \u2018his poor bereaved mother\u2019 in the Observer. 1861 lists her as Joanna Sullivan, 73 (former stationer).<\/p>\n In 1851, Johanna (sic) Shannon was at Townhead. With her were daughter Mary Shannon (\u2018poor relief, hawker\u2019), daughter Johanna Hill, son-in-law Samuel Hill (labourer) and grandchildren John Shannon, 9, and Joanna Phelan, 9.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The Cumberland and Westmorland Advertiser, and Penrith Literary Chronicle,<\/i> in May 1858, described J Sullivan thus.<\/p>\n \u2018Who is that pale, thoughtful, companionless man, with intellectual forehead and penetrating eye, that we so often meet on our way to Stag Stones, snatching half an hour at noon from the duties of his academy\u2026?<\/p>\n It was, of course, J Sullivan, author of Cumberland & Westmorland, Ancient and Modern<\/i>:<\/p>\n \u2018a man that someday will be appreciated as he ought to be, even in these counties\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Cumberland & Westmorland, Ancient and Modern <\/i>lives on.<\/p>\n Cumbrian Characters is happy to show some appreciation to its author.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Cumberland & Westmorland, Ancient and Modern, written in 1857, is still of interest today. Cumbrian Characters looks at its author, and Cumbrian place names. A fascinating read \u2018Human sacrifices were perhaps altogether unknown in Cumbria\u2019.\u00a0 The intial reaction of \u2018phew, that\u2019s a relief\u2019 is tempered by \u2018hang on, he says PERHAPS\u2019.\u00a0 The author of that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1876,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[375,376,377,214],"class_list":["post-1875","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cumbria-history","tag-cumbrian-place-names","tag-j-sullivan","tag-jeremiah-sullivan","tag-kendal"],"yoast_head":"\nA fascinating read<\/h2>\n
Cumbrian place names \u2013 far from clear-cut<\/h2>\n
J Sullivan, the author<\/h2>\n
Reviews<\/h2>\n
J Sullivan\u2019s untimely death<\/h2>\n
Ill-health and modest means<\/h2>\n
The funeral<\/h2>\n
\u2018A prophet without honour\u2019<\/h2>\n