TIMELINE: Cumbria

1762

The Seaton Iron Works are set up on the north bank of the River Derwent. They remain in operation until 1899.

1770

William Wordsworth is born in Cockermouth, Cumberland. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Wordsworth and Robert Southey later become known as the ‘Lake Poets’.

1859

The Barrow Hematite Steel Company is founded in Barrow-inFurness. It will eventually grow into the largest working steel mill in the world.

1871

The Iron Shipbuilding Company is founded in Barrow-in-Furness by James Ramsden. It is better known today as Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering.

1908

Catherine Marshall joins the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies, creating a Keswick branch. She establishes a stall in Keswick Market selling suffrage literature.

1917

Wartime ambulance driver Daisy Waddell, from Warwick Bridge, is decorated with the Croix de Guerre with Silver Star after being severely wounded and losing a leg during the course of her duties.

1932

Bob Graham, the owner of a Keswick guest house, traverses 42 fells within a 24-hour period. The Bob Graham Round remains one of the classic big-mountain challenges.

1951

The Lake District, much of which was bequeathed to the National Trust by Beatrix Potter, is designated a national park.

1955

The first volume of Alfred Wainwright’s seven-part series A Pictorial Guide to the Lakeland Fells is published. The books become classic reference works.