The yeoman farmer who made Pillar his own
Last updated 13:37, Thursday, 27 March 2008
John Wilson Robinson would get up at three or four o’clock of a morning to walk the length of Lorton Vale, go over Scarth Gap, cross Ennerdale and proceed to Pillar Rock. There he would spend the whole day climbing on that isolated and endlessly challenging crag.
A Lakeland Climbing Pioneer: John Wilson Robinson of Whinfell Hall by Michael Waller. Bookcase. £10.
His companions in the 1880s were the university men from Oxford and Cambridge. They were young men enjoying the curiosities of Lakeland life: either the tall tales told by landlord Will Ritson in the Huntsman’s Inn in the far reaches of Ennerdale or the good home-cooking provided by Anne Tyson in the farmhouse nearby.
However, they were on holiday to pit themselves against the naked rock face.
These were the early days of English rock-climbing. The great peaks on the continent had been scaled and young men were seeking new challenges.
Foremost among these men was Walter Parry Haskett-Smith. Together the Cumbrian yeoman farmer and the cosmopolitan, Eton-educated Oxford man formed a team that pioneered some of the great routes in English rock-climbing.
The two first came across Napes Needle together but Haskett was the first up that narrow pinnacle. He’d thrown a stone up to test whether the summit was flat or pointed and, once at the top, he’d left his handkerchief fluttering under a stone to claim his prize.
The pair of them were very much against the use of ropes or, indeed, any other technical aids to climbing. For them it was a case of brawn and brain against the bare rock.
Haskett-Smith gave his opinion in no uncertain fashion: ropes were to be “classed with spikes and ladders , as a means by which bad climbers were enabled to go where none but the best climbers had any business to be”.
Pillar Rock was the great proving ground. The first recorded climb was by an Ennerdale shepherd, John Atkinson, in 1826.
One of the most remarkable was by the 80-year-old Rev Steeple James Jackson who styled himself “The Patriarch of the Pillarites” – as he had every right to do. He died, as he’d lived, preparing to ascend the rock-face.
But it was Robinson who made Pillar his own. Before his death at the age of 54 in 1907 he had ascended the crags 101 times and had taught many novice and experienced climbers the intimate character of that legendary rock.
JWR was known for his sociability and his concern for others – excellent qualities in a mountain guide – and for his wisdom.
It may, in part, have been his character as a “dalesman” that held a special appeal for the climbing fraternity.
He lived in a fine old farmhouse, Whinfell Hall, that looked out over the River Cocker and up Lorton Vale to Whinlatter. He farmed 169 acres and was relatively well-to-do, with the leisure time to pursue his own interests.
The family had long been Quakers and regularly attended the Pardshaw Meeting House.
Michael Waller, who is Professor Emeritus of politics at Keele University and a one-time owner of Whinfell Hall, is peculiarly qualified to write this biography of a lesser-known Lakelander.
In providing a picture of John Robinson and his forebears he offers a portrait of an important class of people who did much to influence the development of the Lake Counties in the 19th century and earlier.
Their Quaker religion and their life-style shaped their character.
JWR was also there at a crucial time in the sport of rock-climbing and was interestingly placed socially as a friend and mentor to the young university gentlemen who came to meet the challenge of the crags.
This thorough, well-informed and closely-researched biography is a useful piece in the jigsaws of Cumbrian history and in the story of rock climbing.
A Lakeland Climbing Pioneer is available from Bookends, 56 Castle Street, Carlisle, and 66 Main Street, Keswick, and from www.bookscumbria.com
