SOME NOTABLE CUMBRIANS
By Sir Frederick Chance, K.B.E.
Sir Frederick Chance, himself no mean Cumbrian, has col- lected in a modest volume, Some Notable Cambrian (Carlisle, C. Thurnam and Sons, 3s. 6d.) sketches of nine men, born in Cumberland, who worked illustriously in their county and elsewhere in the last two centuries. They are John Dalton, the chemist ; J. C. Curwen, agriculturist and Member of Parliament ; William Blamire, agriculturist, M.P., and first Tithe Commissioner ; Sir James Graham, most famous of Cumberland's national statesmen (we say " national," for several of the others were " statesmen " in the local use of the term) ; Sir Wilfrid Lawson, M.P. and temperance re- former (and the author's father-in-law) ; George Moore, the merchant and philanthropist best known now through Smiles' biography ; " The Druid," i.e., the agricultural and sporting writer, H. H. Dixon ; R. S. Ferguson, lawyer, antiquarian and Chancellor of the Diocese ; and Mandell Creighton, Bishop of London. Several of these sketches were written for the Carlisle Journal, and much of the earlier information is taken from Lonsdale's Cumberland Worthies. There is no profound study of character or events in these compressed records, but all the subjects were widely known outside the county, and the book is an example of a kind of local patriotism which is always admirable. There is a portrait of each subject.
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