Lonsdale

“ The great divisions of the county are the six hundreds of Lonsdale (north and south of the Sands) ,2 Amounderness, Leyland, Blackburn, Salford, and West Derby.
Lonsdale north of the Sands is situate in the extreme north of Lancashire, and is the most picturesque portion of the county, as it embraces a portion of the well–known Lake District; its highest mountain is the Old Man, near Coniston Water, which is 2,577 feet above the sea–level.
The two subdivisions of Lonsdale north of the Sands are Furness and Cartmel. ”

“ LONSDALE, JOHN (1788–1867) , bishop of Lichfield, born on 17 Jan. 1788 at Newmillerdam, near Wakefield, was the eldest son of John Lonsdale (1737–1800) , vicar of Darfield and perpetual curate of Chapelthorpe. His mother's name was Elizabeth Steer, and his ancestry was Yorkshire on both sides. He was educated at Eton under Dr. Goodall, who pronounced him the best Latin scholar he had ever had. He removed in 1806 to Cambridge, and became fellow of King's in 1809. When he gained the university scholarship, he was said to write the best Latin since the age of Augustus. ”

“ Towards Lonsdale, the mountain is bold and majestic, rising in abrupt and broken precipices, and, often impending, till, at the summit, it suddenly becomes flat, and is level for nearly a mile, whence it descends, in along gradual ridge, to Craven in Yorkshire. In summer, some festivities are annually celebrated on this top, and the country people, as they "drink the freshness of the mountain breeze 1," look over the wild moorlands of Yorkshire, the rich vales of Lancashire, and to the sublime mountains of Westmoreland. ”

“ But those men had all, he reflected, been older than he. And yet, he recalled the words of his doctor:
"A man's as old as his arteries. You've been too long out here. Be sensible, Ayling.... Go home—take it easy—rest. You'll have a long time yet...."
Just a week later, to the day, Ayling stepped into a telephone-booth, looked up Mrs. Lonsdale's number, and telephoned. He had not counted upon loneliness.
At forty-five Bessie Lonsdale had encountered one of those universal experiences which invariably give us, as individuals, so strong a sense of surprise. ”

“ But they brightened up, especially when the most famous sporting peer of England—Lord Lonsdale—led off the dance with a little girl dressed, rather naughtily, as a teetotum. By the time I left—a kind of Pierrot looking on at the gayety of life—there was a terrific battle in progress between groups of boys and girls, with little white rolls of bread as their ammunition. Not commendable. Not strictly virtuous, nor highly proper, but in its wildness there was the spirit of a youth which, afterward, was heroic in self-sacrifice.... So things happened in London before the war. ”

“ St. Mary’s had always been a college for relatively rich men, but in accordance with the spirit of the college to form itself into an aristocratic republic, it had for long been considered bad form to spend more than was enough to sustain each member of this republic on an equality with his fellows.
Now Lonsdale was so obviously a Good Egg that it did not matter when he played with equal zest roulette and polo or hunted three times a week or wore clothes of the last extreme of fashion. But Michael and Grainger were not sure they cared very much for all of Lonsdale’s friends from the House. ”

“ LOWTHER, JAMES, Earl of Lonsdale (1736–1802) , born on 5 Aug. 1736, was the second son of Robert Lowther of Maulds Meaburn in the parish of Crosby Ravensworth, Westmoreland, sometime governor of Barbadoes, by his wife Catherine, only daughter of Sir Joseph Pennington, bart., and granddaughter of John, first viscount Lonsdale [q. v.] ”

“ He secured the election of William Pitt as member for his borough of Appleby in 1781, and his dispute with the 3rd duke of Portland over the possession of the socage manor of Carlisle and the forest of Inglewood gave rise to lengthy proceedings, both in parliament and in the law courts. In 1784 Lowther was created earl of Lonsdale and in 1797 Viscount Lowther with an extended remainder. The earl’s enormous wealth enabled him to gratify his political ambitions. ”

“ The vacation went by very quickly with quiet intervals in London between his visits, of which he enjoyed most the fortnight at Cressingham Hall—a great Palladian house in the heart of the broad Midlands. It was mid-August with neither shooting nor golf to disturb the pastoral calm. Lonsdale was trying under Lord Cleveden’s remonstrances to obtain a grasp of rural administration. So he and his sister Sylvia with Michael drove every day in a high dogcart to various outlying farms of the estate. ”

“ The society was indebted to Lonsdale during his term of office for an innovation in the shape of the skilful condensation of its ‘Transactions.’ After his retirement he pursued his geological studies in various parts of the west of England. ”

“ Hackthorpe village, with an old hall, now a farmhouse, beside the road, brings us to the neighbourhood of Lowther Castle and its beautiful157 park, seat of the Earl of Lonsdale. The mansion itself, built by Smirke in 1808, is magnificent, in the sense that it is huge and was costly to build and is princely in its appointments, but it is not a castle nor is it Gothic architecture, although the architect who designed it, and the second Lord Lonsdale, for whom it was designed, fondly imagined it to be so. ”

“ I've seen some clever men of your country badly done by the ocean-going card sharpers, too. At the time your Lord Lonsdale came to the United States—Violet Cameron incident, you know—he was a pretty young man, even if he did at that period of his life stand in urgent need of a guardian with a heavy club. Well, amid the newspaper uproar over his landing in this country with the Cameron, the fact did not come out that Lonsdale was plucked of $12,000 on the trip over by Ned Turner, one of the most notable of the older clique of steamship sharpers. ”

“ He was something of a sportsman, his horse Spaniel having won the Derby in 1831, paid large subsidies for the maintenance of Italian opera in London, and was an enthusiastic collector of porcelain. He was the distant original of Lord Eskdale in Disraeli's ‘Tancred,’ ‘a man with every ability, except the ability to make his powers useful to mankind.’
Lonsdale died at his house in Carlton Terrace on 4 March 1872, and being unmarried was succeeded by his nephew, Henry Lowther (1818–1876) , father of the present earl. A good portrait was engraved for the ‘Illustrated London News,’ 16 March 1872. ”

“ William Lonsdale had served in the Peninsular war, and retired on half-pay to Bath. With the most simple and abstemious habits, his slender income sufficed not only for his wants, but for the purchase of any book or fossil he coveted, and so he spent his time in studying the organic remains, and especially the fossil corals, to be found in his neighbourhood. Murchison met him accidentally in some quarries, “a tall, grave man, with a huge hammer on his shoulder,” and found him so full of information, that he stayed some days at Bath under Lonsdale’s guidance. ”

“ Lord Lonsdale went to Court to seek to win his pardon from the King should he be brought up for trial and condemned; and he remains there till the Judge has gone, having a special messenger here to bring him instant word if his son should be arraigned. But he himself stays where he is till all peril is past. Then he will come back, and if I mistake me not, his first act will be to wed Mistress Mary Mead to some man of known loyalty, both as a protection to herself and as a means of keeping her away from his son, should [Pg 433] the Viscount ever return. ”

“ Alan would soon be engaged to his sister. It was delightful, of course, but in one way it already placed a barrier between their perfect intercourse. Maurice would obviously soon be thinking of nothing but women. Already even up at Oxford a great deal of his attention had been turned in that direction: and now Lonsdale had Queenie. This swift severance from youth by all his friends, this preoccupation with womanhood was likely to be depressing, thought Michael, unless himself also fell in love. That was very improbable, however. Love filled him with fear. ”

“ With the help of the dean and chapter he established the first dispensary for the poor at Carlisle. Having been a strong tory and supporter of the Lonsdale family most of his life, he joined the reform movement in 1832. ”

“ To the munificence of its patrons—and especially to the Earl of Lonsdale, who has spared neither personal expense nor political influence to facilitate every object which held out the promise of permanent advantage to the inhabitants, it is eminently indebted. And in return, it may be justly observed, that whatever the patron has expended in improving the town and harbour, the people have repaid by increased attachment to the interests of their benefactor. ”

“ Lonsdale Mews opens out of Lonsdale Road, Chelsea; and there is quite a noble entrance with large stucco pillars on either side and an arch over, on which is a design in relievo of Neptune and sea-horses and the words “Lonsdale Mews.” Inside there had once been stables and coach-houses, and over each a bedroom and a sitting-room, which was also, in the more prolific past, generally used as a bedroom, and a cupboard and a landing and so forth, the little home of the coachman (and his wife and family) attached to the genteel carriage and horses below. ”

“ Lonsdale had not spent much time in the cabin, though he slept in one of the berths abaft the state-rooms. He confirmed the statement of the captain that there had been a great deal of earnest conversation between the Floridian and the "young swell." He never listened to private conversation, and he had not the remotest idea what they were talking about. Perhaps Gibbs, the waiter, might know more about the matter than he did. ”

“ But even if things go ill with us, there will be many that may hope to escape with life. Perchance I [Pg 290] will be one of these. For my Mary's sake as well as yours I shall make a battle for my life."
Lord Lonsdale would have stayed to reason longer, but his son shook his head as though to say that argument was useless, as indeed it was when both father and son thought really alike upon the question, and only a sense of honour bound Lord Vere to the cause he never professed to believe in with his heart or soul. ”

“ About 200 Huns entered our line in three places, equipped with spades and rations, and worked forward bombing, and things looked serious; but Lieutenant Lonsdale, though badly shaken, kept his head, organised his Headquarters details into a firing line who held up the enemy advance, and managed to telephone to Battalion Headquarters, and A Company was ordered to counter-attack. ”

“ LOWTHER, WILLIAM, third Earl of Lonsdale (1787–1872) , was the eldest son of Sir William Lowther, by Augusta, daughter of John Fane, ninth earl of Westmoreland. His father, Sir William, was eldest son of the Rev. William Lowther (1707–1788) , rector of Swillington, who was a great-grandson of Sir John Lowther, the grandson of Sir Richard Lowther [q. v.] , sheriff of Cumberland. On the death of Sir James Lowther, first earl of Lonsdale [q. v.] ”

“ The great south window, which, as has just been stated, is in the Perpendicular style, was in 1895 adorned with new glass; this was the gift of Mr A. P. Heywood-Lonsdale, in memory of his father and his uncle, Bishop Lonsdale. The subject is "I am the vine, ye are the branches," and represents Our Lord in the centre surrounded by angels, with the principal bishops of the Early Christian Church. The six early British bishops: St. Columba, Scotland; St. Wulstan, Worcester; St. Chad, Lichfield; St. Augustine, Canterbury; St. Aidan, Northumbria; St. Hugh, Lincoln, are at the feet of Our Lord. ”

“ There are other churches in Lancashire besides Winwick whose sites have been changed by the devil, and he has also built some bridges; that at Kirkby Lonsdale owes much of its beauty to the string of his apron giving way when he was carrying stones in it. ”

“ LONSDALE, HENRY, M.D. (1816–1876) , biographer, born at Carlisle in 1816, was son of Henry Lonsdale, a tradesman there. After attending a local school he was apprenticed in 1831 to Messrs. Anderson & Hodgson, at that time the leading medical practitioners in Carlisle. In 1834 he went to study medicine at Edinburgh, and after a very successful course was in his third year appointed assistant to Dr. ”

“ The harbour is safe, being protected by a stony beach and by a breakwater. The Lonsdale dock is 41/2 acres in extent. The port was made subordinate to that of Maryport in 1892. There are large collieries in the neighbourhood of the town, the workings in some cases extending beneath the sea, and blast furnaces, engineering works, cycle and motor works, shipbuilding yards and paper mills. The borough is under a mayor, 7 aldermen and 21 councillors. ”

“ In the Lancashire part of Lonsdale no church is named as a building, but as we have after the word Lancaster171 Church Lancaster (Chercaloncastre) , it is evident that this ancient town had at that time, at all events, its church (to which we shall refer again hereafter) ; and from the fact that to the four manors of Bentham (in Yorkshire) , Wennington, Tatham and Tunstall were attached185 three churches, it is clear that not less than two of them were in Lancashire, and these were at Tatham and Tunstall. ”

“ He thinks that the alliance would be desirable and strengthening for both houses; and the lady is more than willing, since the Viscount is the most gallant youth in these parts. That is why Mr. Nicholas Blewer's suit has been favoured by Lord Lonsdale. He is afraid what the beauty of Mary may effect if Lord Vere ever sees her again. He knows nothing of our rides. He believes his son is forgetting her; but he will not be easy in his mind till one or both are wed. What vile things men are! ”