The 1844 Railway Issue (contra)
One of the results of an increased tourist interest in the Lake District was the building of more transport links, looking to increase the ease with which tourist could reach the area and also increase the numbers of those who were visiting. One of the most controversial developments along this line was the development of the railway deeper within the Lake District within the 1840’s. The initial plan was to build a line that afforded access to Kendal and other parts of the area from Carlisle and Lancaster.
These plans divided opinion, with some welcoming the opening up of the area and the increase in accessibility for isolated rural towns, whereas others viewed the move with horror, looking upon it as a noisy, unwanted imposition upon the innocent and tranquil pastoral area.
William Wordsworth was one of the most prominent and loudest voices against the plan, sending in open letters to the 16th October 1844 Morning Post, within which he called into question the wisdom of allowing the “uneducated persons in large bodies” as would be transported by these trains into the peace of the Lake District. Wordsworth also produced several poems on the subject including a sonnet On the Projected Kendal and Windermere Railway where he denounced the proposed railway extension as a “rash assault” upon the unblemished countryside.
Others looked upon the proposals more favourably, with the editor of the Carlisle Journal producing an editorial in December 1844 in response to Wordsworth’s letter to the Morning Post. In this the editor claimed that Wordsworth was being selfish, looking to retain the Lake District as his own private garden. And, whereas Wordsworth doubted the urban working classes’ ability to appreciate the area, The Carlisle Journal’s editor claimed “it is notorious that none is more demonstrative of his admiration for the beauties of nature than the Cockney: the unfamiliarity stimulates his facilities; and startled with sensations which to the dweller among the wilds are matters of course, he names them”.
Wordsworth’s prominence, fame and friends in high places meant that, although the plans for the railway were given royal assent in 1845, they were scaled down and the line into the district was extended only to a small hamlet Birthwaite (later to be renamed Windermere in an effort to attract tourists).
