Object of the Month: March 2025
The Lake District Defence Society – Appeal for Funds March 1887
March’s Object of the Month is inspired by community efforts to protect the environment in Lakeland. Let’s look at this 1887 appeal for funding by the Lake District Defence Society.
The Lake District Defence Society (LDDS) was the brainchild of conservationist Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley. In 1883, Rawnsley spearheaded a campaign to oppose the construction of two railway lines through the Newlands and Ennerdale valleys in the Lake District. To his surprise, the campaign succeeded and brought his work to nationwide attention. As a result, Rawnsley presented his idea for the LDDS at the annual meeting of the Wordsworth Society on 2nd May 1883.
In 1886, the Ambleside Railway Bill was published, aiming to extend the line from Windermere to Ambleside, laying the ground for future expansion to Grasmere and Keswick. This would have taken trains straight through the Rydal and Grasmere valleys, changing the landscape forever.
Unlike the railways to Newlands and Ennerdale, the bill initially had a lot of support from local business owners and the town council. This posed a new challenge to the LDDS, but they launched an opposition campaign regardless, largely under the direction of W H Hills. He is mentioned in the list of members below, alongside Rawnsley and Gordon Wordsworth, great grandson of the poet William Wordsworth.
This appeal was launched on 17th March 1887 to raise funds for the society’s campaign against the Ambleside Railway Bill. As mentioned in the text, this was the “second Appeal to the Members and to others for Subscriptions” from the local community. The appeal also notes the society’s previous successes against railway projects and preserving local footpaths and bridleways.
The Ambleside Railway Bill ultimately failed. In February 1887, the London and North-Western Railway, who were to build the proposed railway, came out against the Bill saying they did not intend to work the line after it was built. This appeal was released while the Select Committee was debating the bill, and on 21st March 1887 they rejected it “upon financial grounds, expressing no opinion upon the alleged probable advantages of the line to the district.” The LDDS had won again.
Canon Rawnsley resigned from the LDDS in 1889, after he became a County Councillor for Keswick. In 1895 he co-founded the National Trust with Octavia Hill and Robert Hunter. The LDDS continued for at least another twenty years under W H Hills’ leadership, focussing on local issues such as the siting of telegraph poles, footpath closures, the opening of new quarries, and hydroplanes on Windermere.
Learn more about Ambleside and the history of the Lake District at The Armitt, where we currently have exhibitions on Beatrix Potter, Alfred Wainwright and the Ambleside Roman fort.
Sources:
• The Armitt Collection
• H D Rawnsley
• Ambleside Railway
• Lake District Defence Society
• National Trust – Hardwicke Rawnsley: ‘Defender of the Lakes’
