Blog

March 2024 | Cumbria Born and Bred, Poet Laureate
~ William Wordsworth, 7 April 1770 – 23 April 1850

William Wordsworth, an English Romantic poet, was born in 1770 in Cockermouth originally in the county of Cumberland and became an orphan after losing his mother at the age of 7, and his father 6 years later. He, along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge, helped to launch the Romantic Age in English literature with their joint publication, Lyrical Ballads.

Although Wordsworth was wary of tourists invading his beloved Lake District he was one of the first authors to write a guide book “A Guide through the District of the Lakes”. He also opposed the railway encroaching on his home area as he didn’t think the masses would appreciate the natural beauty. 

Nature played a significant role in inspiring Wordsworth’s poetry, and he believed in its power to heal and rejuvenate and found solace and beauty in its presence.

Wordsworth attended Cockermouth Free School which was also attended by Christian Fletcher who led the mutiny on HMS Bounty but Fletcher was 6 years older than Wordsworth so probably they were not school friends. Wordsworth went on to attend Hawkshead Grammar school and Cambridge University.

In 1790 like many young men of his day Wordsworth embarked on a Grand Tour walking through revolutionary France during his summer vacation and fell in love with a French woman, Annette Vallon, who, in 1792, gave birth to their daughter, Caroline.

He also was a strong supporter of the abolition of slavery and the rights of women as well as supporting the temperance movement although he did frequent the Red Lion pub in Grasmere.

For the last seven years of his life he was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom, though he wrote no official verses during this time.

Join our trip - The Lake District at Work - the Real Cumbria.