|
[
Home ] [ How to
find us ] [ Links
] |
|
HARRIET MARTINEAU Extracts from as essay by Barbara Todd When Harriet Martineau arrived in Ambleside at the age of 42, she had already established herself as one of the most outstanding women of her age, enjoying the kind of popular adulation only reserved nowadays for pop, movie or TV stars.... Harriet began writing at an early age and when her cloth-manufacturer father went bankrupt in 1829, being unable to teach, as her unmarried sisters were obliged to do, since from her early teens she had been afflicted by ever-increasing deafness, she determined to earn her living by her pen. After a bitter struggle, trying to persuade publishers to take her work, she suddenly became a phenomenal success with the publication of her Illustrations of Political Economy. These appeared monthly between 1832-34 and established her career both as a writer and formidable political and social influence, with her opinions and company sought by the most fashionable and powerful in the land. Between 1834 and 1836 she travelled widely in the United States, was entertained by President Jackson, (on her arrival in Washington over 600 people had left their card!), made particular friends with the Boston Abolitionists and particular enemies of the Southern slave-holders, once she had publicly espoused the Abolitionist cause. On her return to England, she caused a further sensation with Society in America (1837) and Retrospect Of Western Travel (1838), both very readable travel books, but highly critical of the American political and social scene...Her output was phenomenal. Articles on myriads of subjects now flowed from her pen, until in 1839 her health collapsed and, suffering from a painful and debilitating ovarian tumour, for the next five years was forced into retirement at Tynemouth under the medical supervision of her brother-in-law, a Newcastle surgeon. As she began to recover, greatly assisted, she felt, by Mesmerism, she was invited to convalesce at a friend's house 'Wansfell' on the shores of Windermere. The beauty of the Lakeland landscape completely enchanted her and she quickly determined that she would make it her permanent home. At first taking lodgings at Waterhead (in a cottage now part of the Wateredge Inn) she bought a field behind the Methodist Chapel on Rydal Road, designed a house to place on it herself, engaged a local contractor with the promise of regular tranches of cash payments, provided that he undertook to pay his workmen weekly - (in those days workers had to wait months before they received and kind of payment) - and the building of 'The Knoll', proceeded "without a difficulty, or a shadow of misunderstanding throughout." The old Wordsworth took a great interest in the whole project pronouncing it "the wisest step in her life, for the value of the property will be doubled in ten years."
Harriet moved into 'The Knoll' in April 1846 and with health restored, began the happiest and most productive years of her life, not simply as a writer, but as a truly benevolent member of the local community. Seeing the appallingly unsanitary and overcrowded conditions which most of the local people were compelled to live in, and their consequent suffering from disease and early death, she began a series of winter evening lectures, teaching them of the crucial importance of proper sanitation and drainage and how, by banding together and regular saving, they could be free from unscrupulous landlords and build decent cottages for themselves. This led, in February 1849, to the establishment of the Windermere Permanent Land, Building and Investment Association (the first Building Society in the North of England), which erected cottages on Ellerigg Road, Ambleside, still occupied and in excellent condition, at a healthy south-facing site with a beautiful view of Lake Windermere below... Then, finding the provision of good fresh food for her constant stream of visitors difficult, especially in the tourist season, she decided to provide this for herself, so, importing a farm-worker from Norfolk, she built him a cottage at the foot of 'The Knoll' and established a small farm, thus becoming almost entirely self-sufficient, proving in spite of a good deal of local scepticism, that it was perfectly possible to keep two cows, a pig, poultry yards and grow all manner of fruit and vegetables, on a mere two acres of land.
In 1855, chronic ill-health once more overcame her, and although no longer able to roam the fells which she had once so enjoyed, she never stopped writing. She published her Complete Guide to the English Lakes (which still makes informative and fascinating reading), earlier that same year, when she also wrote her Autobiography (although this was not published until after her death). From the time she arrived in Ambleside, she produced more than twenty books, some in several volumes, and over sixteen hundred article as a leader writer for The Daily News, besides countless articles on an astonishing range of subjects for all the major periodicals of her day, always offering powerful support to such younger women reformers as Josephine Butler and Florence Nightingale - by whom she was greatly admired... She died peacefully at The Knoll in June 1876 at the age of seventy-four.
|
|
[
Home ] [ How to
find us ] [ Links
] |