Poems

Appendix

Education

In this agricultural village, learning was not entirely neglected; Captain James Barrow's school was attended by William Fisher's children; Mary, Margaret, Richard and William James. The pupils of this small school had good reason to leave their lessons if the high tide flooded their classroom. Margaret later attended a boarding school in Ulverston. Richard and William James were given dancing lessons, and in 1825, their father paid one pound and four shillings for a copy of Edward Baines's History of Lancashire; in the same year, a copy of The Sunday Times was received into the Fisher household for the first time. Blackwood's Magazine was also read.

RELIGION

In 1843, a Chapel of Ease was built near Newbarns; before this period, people walked every Sunday to the Parish Church at Dalton, four miles away, to the ancient chapel on Walney Island, or to Rampside Chapel. A local Wesleyan preacher from Scales travelled from Dalton to Barrow once a fortnight to preach.

Children were taught the catechism by their parents, in preparation for the annual catechising of children at Dalton Parish Church. In 1826, William Fisher paid nineteen pounds for a seat in Dalton Church.

There was no Roman Catholic Church in Barrow village at this time, but some of the villagers must have been Catholics for in 1836 W. Fisher records the death of a child ..... "aged about 6 months interd at Walney without any serimony being of the Romen perswason".