Chapter 19

Public Services

Some of the services provided by local or central government are considered elsewhere education, libraries, highways, police, etc. In this chapter we look at the remainder, provisions for the life of the town which usually began as private concerns but eventually passed into public control.

Water

Cockermouth, like the rest of Britain, relied for water on the rivers and the wells, the former also serving as sewers and the latter often close to middens. Outbreaks of disease gradually strengthened the demand for a proper town supply and the first scheme evolved, taking water from the Cocker at a point above the town and its pollution, and pumping it to the old reservoir on the southern corner of Lamplugh Road and Parkside Avenue. Railway Terrace now stands on the site of the former water works, but the pump house remains in the corner of the enclosure, converted into a bungalow. (Figs. 70, 72) In 1874 two schemes were considered. The first was to extend the Cockermouth waterworks to supply Workington and the intermediate villages via a new reservoir near Scales Farm. [1] This £25,000 plan would have given Workington purer water, but it was never implemented, possibly because a bill was about to be considered by Parliament prohibiting the placing of sewage in rivers. (Cockermouth Local Board was granted an extension to find an alternative to its use of the Derwent.) The second and more favoured scheme was for a ‘Whinlatter reservoir to supply Cockermouth, Workington, Maryport and the villages with 900,000 gallons per day. [2] This too was finally abandoned in 1876 and the following year the Crummock Water scheme was put forward. Parliament passed the Cockermouth and Workington Bill and water began flowing on 15 May 1880. The old pumping station by the Cocker was advertised for sale. [3] Since then various improvements in the supply have been made. A new reservoir was built on the opposite corner of Parkside Avenue, connected to one above Towers Lane (with a stone tower) which provides pressure for the higher parts of the town. In the 1960s a new pipe line was laid from Crummock and treatment works built downstream from Scalehill.

A handbook of the Local Board shows that in 1867 water charges were ‘block’ charges for dwellings, shops, inns, etc., in three broad categories of rateable value. By 1911 the block charge was giving way to one based upon rateable value – 2s. [10p] for a house rated up to £4, but beyond this 4d. in the pound. There were additional rates for certain trades – building, car hire, photography, etc. – and for gardens and animals. [4] In 1978, the supply now being part of the North West Water Authority, the domestic rate was 8½p per pound rateable value, plus a basic charge of £5.50. NW Water now makes sewerage a separate charge, 10p in the pound in 1978. Complaints were made in 1921 of the inadequacy of the sewerage arrangements. An estimate of £20,000 was given for a new works,[5] but in a time of high unemployment such a scheme had an additional attraction and it went ahead, to be completed about four years later. [6] Meanwhile Maryport continued to obtain water from the outskirts of Cockermouth, pumping from a well by the Derwent, next to Low Gote Mill, to a height of 220 feet [67m] at the sand filtering beds at Bridekirk. [7] From there it flowed by gravity to the Hayborough reservoir. Alternative arrangements were made and the pumping station was converted into dwellings in 1974. The outstanding square and stepped chimney was demolished. The station had an attractive interior with decorative columns and a polished floor; also, until it went for scrap in the 1939-45 war, a beam engine. The stone-lined well has been preserved intact and covered in such a way that it may still be examined by the industrial archaeologist. [8] (Fig. 62).

Gas

Elaborate notices appeared in the town over the date October 26th. 1830 which announced “Lighting the Borough of Cockermouth with Gas. Subscriptions are now receiving for lighting this Town with Gas, in 600 Shares of £5 per Share”. [9] With the £3000 thus raised a private company built the gas works in 1834. [10] Additional capital was raised later in the century for extensions. The Vestry discussed gas lighting in the streets in 1836 and eventually a contract was agreed with the gas company. In 1847 the lamp rate was 4d. in the pound. There was periodic disagreement between the Vestry and the company and at times the town was in complete darkness.

Negotiations for a take-over by the Local Board of what was now the Cockermouth Gas Light and Coke Company were ended by the arbitration of a firm of London solicitors (after both sides had submitted bills to Parliament), as a result of which the Board took over the enterprise for £]4,644 in 1888. At this time the streets were lit by some 170 lamps. [11] The Cockermouth undertaking passed to Northern Gas on I April 1947. In January 1970 the town supply was converted to North Sea natural gas and the Cockermouth works became storage only, the two holders having a capacity of 400,000 cubic feet. 1979 charges were 20.3 pence per therm for the first 52 therms used, then 15.3 pence, about ten times the cost in 1888. [12] Both holders have now been demolished.

Electricity

Cockermouth was one of the first towns in England to install electric street lighting. Because of dissatisfaction with the gas lighting of the town, the Local Board obtained two tenders from John Whittle and Son of Whitehaven. [13] The first was for 109 gas lamps with wooden posts and house brackets, with lighting and extinguishing for three years, at £275 per year. The second was for six Brush Electric Light System lamps, each of 2000 candle power and the six together estimated to be equivalent to 800 gas lamps. The six were to be placed in Crown Street (Derwent Street corner), Main Street (Sullart Street and Station Street), Market Place, Kirkgate Square and Station Street (South Street). Electric lighting not being economical for the back streets, 25 gas oil lamps would be erected in these. The total estimate, again with lighting and extinguishing, was £270 per year. Both estimates were slightly below the current cost of gas lighting and the second was accepted. Mr. McQuhae, the most enthusiastic supporter of the scheme, said when the tender was accepted “We shall have all the world to see us.” [14] Certainly on 1 September 1881 people crowded into the town for the great switch-on. Four thousand came by train alone, a number of special trains being run. [15] The event was given much publicity and attracted attention overseas as well as in this country. A Paris engineer commissioned to light Buenos Aires wrote to the “President of the Municipality of Cockermouth” about the scheme. [16] Mr. McQuhae switched on in a shed built by Palmer Robinson in High Sand Lane to house the 12 HP dynamo. There was a flash and darkness, the second-hand engine not being able to meet the demand. [17] To temper the disappointment of the waiting crowds the supply was restored for two brief periods. A new dynamo was acquired and by 23 September five of the lamps were working. The electric lighting did not last and the town reverted to gas. In 1927 the Urban District Council contracted with the Old Silkstone Quarries Ltd. to supply electricity to the town [18] and electric street lighting gradually spread, but there was still a lamplighter after the last war and the last gas lamp disappeared in the 1970s. The Cockermouth Electric Light Company operated in 1883 . Later we had the Mid-Cumberland Electricity Co. Ltd., which in 1947 became part of the North Western Electricity Board, ‘Norweb’. Since deregulation there have been frequent changes of ownership and a multitude of supplier names, e.g. United Utilities, Powergen, etc

Fire Brigade

Cockermouth’s first fire engine would be a hand-operated pump, then later came horse-drawn vehicles. At one time the engine was kept in a warehouse on the Sands [19] but there are references to one before the date of the Waterloo Street buildings. Apparently there was dissatisfaction with the fire fighting arrangements in the town, for in 1817, [20] a public meeting of the Proprietors of the Fire Engine and others was called by the Vestry to put matters on a sound basis. Eleven rules were drawn up, including payment for use in the town and in the country and the need for the engine to be used at least once every three months. The engine was owned by the subscribers, but a new move came when in 1847 the Vestry allowed £16 a quarter for its maintenance. It was kept at that time below the market hall and it was here that an old manual engine used in the 1870s and 1880s was crushed when the market hall floor collapsed during the war. [21]

A booklet of 18 ‘Rules of the Cockermouth Volunteer Fire Brigade’ issued in 1864 stipulated the size of the force (20 effective members plus reserves); uniform (helmet, Guernsey shirt and belt for effective members, cap for reserves) to be worn only on duty; regular drills, with fines for absence; etc.

The rules carefully laid down the duties of officers and brigade members – who gave orders, positions on the hose, clearing up after a fire, etc., all in great detail.

There were procedures for entering buildings. Instructions were given for maintaining the engine and for care of the hoses, which at this time were of leather, woven canvas and india-rubber, certain oils for their preservation being prescribed.

These hopeful plans were not observed for long, for in April 1876 there was a complaint that the brigade had not had either a call-out or a practice for four years, the last being the burning of Mr. McQuhae’s workshop in Challoner Street. [22] This accusation was denied, but it was accepted that few men turned up for drills. Whether there were any drills to attend is doubtful, judging from an experience just after Christmas in the same year which cannot be described in better words than those of ‘Whiteoak’ in the West Cumberland Times. [23] A barn fire occurred in the night at Greysouthen and, while the villagers did their best with buckets,

• “somebody was sent to Cockermouth to summon the Fire Brigade and Tom Weatherstone was chosen because his horse was the fastest in Greysouthen. He rode to Cockermouth at a furious pace and roused Superintendent Taylor, who roused Mr. John Cook, and among them they alerted the Fire Brigade men …… they were told by word of mouth because when Superintendent Taylor tried to ring the fire bell the rope broke at the second tug. However, the men were collected at the engine house, but when they got inside they found the engine hidden under a heap ofold tools and broken wheelbarrows which had to be shifted first. And then “Heave, heave!” . But the engine wouldn’t budge. One of the wheel bearings had seized up in solid rust, and somebody had to fetch an oil can to try and work it loose. Working with commendable energy, the firemen decided that if one wheel had rusted up the others also needed oiling, so the engine was given a service while somebody, who had discovered another urgent requirement for the occasion, went to roust out the horseman at the Globe Hotel and borrow a couple of horses to haul the engine to Greysouthen. To make sure his horses were well treated the Globe ostler came along to drive them and all went well, once the nags were harnessed up, as the fire engine, well loaded with firemen, sped along Main Street to the cheers of those of the populace who had bothered to get up…. at the Bread and Beer House, near Brigham, … a wheel flew off the engine and its crew were pitched head over heels into the dyke …. A lynch pin had come out of the axle, so another was found and fitted, but a few hundred yards on the wheel came off again… Once on the spot … with three men on each handle of the manual pump, the Fire Brigade sprung into action. The men holding the nozzle of the hose waited in vain for water to appear, and then a shriek from the now unemployed Greysouthen firefighters told them where their water had gone. The hose had a hole in it, and was spraying the crowd.”

This experience apparently provoked the town into action, for a year later uniforms were newly bought for the Volunteer Brigade and we find the Council taking a greater part. The services of the brigade still had to be paid for in the 1920s and subscribers and non subscribers to the brigades funds paid by the hour at different rates. In 1923, for example, there was the following table of charges:- [24]

Town Fires

Captain – First hour 7s – Each additional hour 5s

Lieutenant – First hour 6s – Each additional hour 4s

Firemen – First hour 3s 6d – Each additional hour 2s 6d

Country Fires

Captain – First hour subs 8s – non subs 10s – Each additional hour subs 6s non subs 7s

Lieutenant – First hour subs 7s – non subs 9s – Each additional hour subs 5s non subs 6s

Firemen – First hour subs 5s – non subs 6s – Each additional hour subs 3 ½ s non subs 4s

Basic charge for subscribers £3-10s-0

Basic charge for non-subscribers £6

In 1921 there were 14 members of the brigade and they received drill allowances of 3s, per hour for not more than nine drills a year. [25] The Cockermouth Brigade became part of the National Fire Service during the war. The Cumberland Fire Service was formed in 1948 and on local government reorganisation on 1 April 1974 was absorbed into the Cumbria Fire Service, the second largest territorially in the country.

The establishment of the Cockermouth brigade in 1979 was 12. It was a retained brigade, (i.e. part-time). In 1979 [26] the fee payable to firemen was £34 r per year, in addition to which a man rj!ceived £2.50 for attending a fire and £1.36 for reporting to the station in response to an emergency call.

In 1995 there are two categories of firemen, those undertaking to attend 100% of call-outs, paid £1440 rising to £1575 after three years’ service, and those attending 75% with £1080 rising to £] 185. Attendance at a fire earns £10.67 plus £4.75 per hour and for responding to an emergency call the payment is £5.80. Personnel attend the station two hours a week for training and maintenance of equipment, for which they are paid. There is no charge for the services of the brigade in attending fires or other incidents involving human life, but a charge is made for help in other ways, such as filling a swimming pool. Cockermouth has a water tender carrying 400 gallons but no longer possesses the 35ft. [10.7m] ladder which it had in 1979, its needs being supplemented by appliances from neighbouring towns.

The county fire service moved from Carlisle to Grecian Villa in 1955, occupying three first floor rooms and sharing with other tenants such as Weights and Measures and the Court, It eventually took over the whole of the building. Then in 1986 what was now the Cumbria HQ moved to purpose built premises on the former station site which were opened by Princess Anne on 30 March 1987. From here are controlled 5 full-time and 33 retained brigades, having over 700 full and part-time staff. The total of calls per year around 1980 was some 5000, of which 109 were answered by the Cockermouth brigade, now risen to 9,000 turn-outs for all reasons in 1994/5, 171 by Cockermouth. A new fire statiop for the town adjacent to the county headquarters was built in 2002. [In 2006, no use has been agreed for the old site.] Cumbria Fire Service is one of the most efficient in the country, making good use of modern technology. This is a far cry from the time, not so long ago, when the men had to look for horses when the alarm sounded. The present range of efficient appliances is also a far cry from the engines provided by public subscription, even into the 20th century. A handbill issued in 1922 under the heading ‘Fire Brigade, Cockermouth’ read:

• “Dear Sir or Madam, In order to protect you from the terrible consequences of Fire, it is proposed to purchase for Cockermouth and District, one of the New Stanley Motor Fire Engines, at a cost of about £500 …. We propose to raise the money amongst property owners of the district.” [27]

The handbill describes the engine and appeals to each to contribute their fair share, pointing out that Lord Leconfield had given £35. This new engine was housed in Fairfield, but in 1948 the Lorton Street station was built. The siren was on the station roof until July 1972 when radio alerters were issued to firemen.

Parks

In June 1893 a public meeting was held in the Court House to consider how the town might commemorate the marriage of the Duke of York to Princess Mary. [28] The provision ofa public park was the proposal most favoured and the next year the Local Board suggested an area on Rubby Banks, with Deer Orchard as a possible alternative. The estimated cost was £1500 with annual expenses of £120. Within a few months Mrs. Eliza J. Harris, who had been considering how she could commemorate the life of her husband Joseph, offered the town £2000 to purchase land for a park in his memory. [29] Hence ‘Harris Park’ of some 13 acres on Rubby Banks. A Public Park Committee was formed, but management was soon taken over by the Council. In the early 1970s, when the Riverdale Estate was built, land on the east bank of the Cocker below the 150 feet contour was added to the park. In August 1987 two members of the Harris family came from the south of the country to open a new ‘bower’ or clubhouse for the Harris Park Bowling Club. In three years in the early 1980s, peace trees were planted near the terrace walk to mark the anniversary of Hiroshima. Arranged by the Cockermouth Peace Group, in 1981 trees were planted by Dale Campbell-Saviours (local MP) and John Crawley, Rector of Cockermouth. In addition to the Wordsworth memorial fountain and a drinking fountain near the tool shed (moved from a site near the railway station in 1920), the park once had a gun, the base for which remains with the words ‘Taken in 1857 and placed here to commemorate completion of the Water Works March 1877’. In 1933 a scheme was put forward for constructing bathing and paddling pools at the bottom of the park, principally to provide employment, but this was never started.

Another scheme which never reached fruition was the development of land in High Sand Lane as Coronation Gardens. In 1937 the Council asked Messrs. Jennings for the land and the brewery gave it to the town, the Council to be responsible for clearing and fencing it.

There are a few open spaces in the town for which the Council is responsible. The land for the Memorial Gardens on the north bank of the Derwent was bought in 1946 and opened as a war memorial by Lt. Col. Chicken on 11 August 1956. The gardens were recently extended eastwards along the bank of the river. To celebrate the 1990 European Year for the Disabled, a Euro-trail for the disabled, suitable for wheelchairs, was made here in July 1991, much of the work being done by fourteen members of an International Voluntary Work Camp drawn from nine countries. Since then a similar track has been laid in the original Memorial Gardens, sponsored by Rotary and a number of local firms. Small play areas have been provided on the Slate Fell estate, the Riverdale estate and on Isel Road, and more are being asked for. The Council also maintains small areas of flowers in the Gote, at the Derwent Bridge corner, in the rockery at the top of Kirkgate, round the war memorial and, most notable of all, along the centre of Main Street.

Burial Grounds And The Cemetery

Burial was originally in the churchyard, but interments also took place in Sepulchre Close in St. Helen’s Street, [30] behind the Friends’ Meeting House and, judging from the gravestones, behind the United Reformed Church and in front of the Town Hall (formerly the Wesleyan Methodist Church), on these two sites. The last two were small areas; the Quaker burial ground is still used occasionally. The churchyard naturally became overcrowded and in 1854 a meeting

• “resolved that a new Burial Ground be provided by the Ratepayers of the Township of Cocker mouth”.

 

Nine ratepayers were elected to form the Burial Board. Later the same year the Board was given authority to purchase part of Cockermouth Common for a Burial Ground. [31]

In summer 1855 the Board bought the Parsonage Field of five acres from General Wyndham. Charles Eaglesfield was the architect of the buildings

• “The Churchmen’s Chapel, on the right, will be joined to the Dissenters’ Chapel, on the left, by a beautiful tower rising over the entrance, which will cause the chapels and gateway to have the solemn appearance ofan ecclesiastical structure.”

 

The total cost of land, landscaping, chapels and curator’s house was £2,800. [32] The cemetery had been enlarged three times already by 1912 and by 1938 the original five acres had grown to almost 20. A further post-war extension was made eastwards along the railway line. The valley of Tom Rudd makes it a most attractive area, especially when spring bulbs are in flower in the older portions.

When the cemetery was first opened in 1856, being consecrated by the Bishop of Carlisle on 12 September of that year, the approach from the town was down Skinner Street and up Scarwell Brow. A funeral procession was preceded by the verger, carrying a prayer book and indicating by his dress the status of the deceased. He was given black crepe to fix round his hat for a man’s funeral, a pair of white gloves to carry for a spinster, etc. At one time this official was the Mr. Mounsey who saved the church silver and when the railway was newly opened he was on one occasion nearly run down by the funeral horses, startled by a shunting engine puffing steam over the bridge. [33] For almost the whole of the twentieth century the cemetery has been in the care of two families J.D. and then William Percy Kirkbride, followed by Harry and then Norman Pitts. The curator in 1995 was R. Deacon.

The Postal Service

We consider elsewhere the post-coach connections between Cockermouth and other parts of the country and the 1761 attempts to improve these connections by new “cross road branches.”[34] An early post office in the town was a room on the Kitty Went side of the Globe. [35] There was a wall letter-box here until 1882. William Wood was postmaster. Cockermouth was a halt on a through post route, for mail from London, Lancashire and the south arrived at 8am. and at the same time there was a dispatch to Workington; mail arrived from Workington at 5 pm. and at the same time there was a dispatch southwards. In 1829 the town had a horse post to and from Maryport at 8-10 am. and 4 p.m., and a foot Post on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday mornings to Bridekirk, Tallentire, Gilcrux and Aspatria, with an incoming mail later the same days. [36] William Wood was followed by his son Jonathan who moved the office across Main Street into Smails Yard, where he combined it with a wine and spirit business.

In 1847 the London morning mail arrived by rail from Carlisle – this was Cockermouth’s first year with a rail link to Workington. The ‘evening’ mail coach arrived at 1.26am from Windermere Station, bringing also Kendal, Ambleside and Keswick bags. Outgoing letters went by rail to Carlisle at 5-50 pm. [37]

In 1874 the post office opened from 12-45 to 1-45 on Sunday for delivery of mail to callers. The office was at William Bell’s in Station Street by 1883. Postal business could be done from 7 am. to 8 pm., 8 to 10 am. on Sundays, money order and savings bank from 9 to 5 and telegraph from 8 to 8. [38]

There was initially no country delivery. Farmers’ mail [39] was left ‘at their quarters’ in the town, each having a fixed place, such as a particular inn, where he would call on each visit. The Earl of Lonsdale was mainly responsible for starting country deliveries when he was Postmaster General. In 1889 a rural postman, William Barwise, was provided with a pony and trap. [40] Some used bicycles, others walked. One took the 7 am. train to Bassenthwaite Lake and walked back via Bewaldeth and IseL [41] In 1905 the Cockermouth area included Greysouthen, Arlecdon, Lamplugh, Buttermere, Bassenthwaite Lake, Tallentire and Broughton. [42]

Gradually the times of inward and outward mails [43] extended, e.g. 6-30 am. to 7-20 pm. in 1905, the 7-20 being a “supplementary night mail despatch (by Apparatus)”, but since the second war there has been a contraction in the number of collections from boxes and in the opening hours of the offices. There is now only one sub-office in the town, in Windmill Lane, and the Station Street office ceased to be a crown office in 1970. It has moved very frequently – Station Street, 18 Main Street in the early 1990’s, then into WaIter Willson’s Supermarket in Lowther Went and now into the Co-op Supermarket further up on Station Street.

Telephone Services

The National Telephone Company applied to the Local Board for permission to extend its exchange in 1885, [44] so Cockermouth had the telephone by then. The first exchange had been opened in London in 1878. The first Cockermouth exchange and call office’ was at Joseph P. Douglas’s hairdressers at 82 Main Street (now R Relph’s butchers shop) and then at Miss Ede’s baby linen & ladies underclothing shop, on the corner of Bridge Street (94 Main Street). Miss Ede moved with it to the post office when the Company was nationalised in 1912. A modem automatic exchange is situated behind Norham House.

Broadband access to the Internet arrived in 2004 for the town although some of the outlying villages are still too far from the exchanges to have the full benefit of this.