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Cumbrians Who are we?
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everyone comes from somewhere Hidden Stories - Shared Lives
We all come from somewhere - whether it’s down the road or from farther afield. We have been on the move from the dawn of history up to the present day - we’re quite a mixed bunch.
A mixed
My family has farmed Herdwicks in this valley for at least 13 generations. In some ways sheep farming and our way of life hasn’t changed much over the centuries. There’s still some Scandinavian in there somewhere, particularly our language. When we meet our opposite numbers from Norway we laugh at the way we all have the same long noses!
My Grandad came here from Italy after World War I. He came to Glasgow first with his brothers, and then moved down here, maybe to work in the mines? After he met my Nana they started a fish and chip shop and then a café. They made and sold their own ice cream. My cousin’s lad said he might go back to Italy one day - said the Romans went back home, so why shouldn’t he?
I met a lady the other day who was telling me her great grandparents left the colliery at Aspatria to go and work in the pits in County Durham. I thought that was odd because my family did the opposite - we came to the Cumberland pits from the North East. Apparently miners moved back and forth a lot, going where the money or conditions were better. They walked it too. I wonder if our ancestors passed each other?
My family have always lived here - well, we came over with the Conqueror from Normandy, so I suppose we’re descended from the Norsemen originally. Like many landed families there are different branches that have flourished in various parts of Cumbria … but we’ve been here looking after our land and castle for a very, very, long time now. I think we’ll stay!
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bunch... I’ve lived in Penzance Street all my life, and always wondered about the name. It seems our street was built for the Cornish miners who came here in the 1870s. There were a lot came up to the North West to work here, mostly in the iron mines I’m told. I always wonder how they knew about the jobs, and how did they get here? Railway, I suppose.
I moved to South Lakes from Poland with my young family a couple of years ago. I came for work and my first impressions were that it’s much calmer here than in Poland. And small talk is definitely a big thing over here. It’s quite hard to master without feeling you are imposing. At first I tried really hard to fit in, but in the end I thought ‘OK, just take me as I am’. Coming to live here has been good - really good.
My family left Burma in the early 60s and settled in Bolton, which was where I was born. My parents worked hard in factories and we were a loving family with a close community of both recent immigrants and Bolton folks. I came to live in West Cumbria a few years ago and immediately felt welcome here. I love the mountains and lakes. The only thing missing is a good spice shop round the corner!
I always thought my Irish ancestors came here because of the potato famine - turns out my however many times great grandmother came over to work in the flax mill at Cleator in the late 1830s. On the 1851 census there’s a boarding house with a lot of Irish lasses, mostly from County Down, spinners and weavers. She married a local lad, so she must have been happy here.
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Prehistoric period hunters and gatherers Romans 1st - 4th centuries, from all over the Roman Empire
Arrivals and Some of the major movements of
Norsemen/Vikings 8th - 11th centuries, Scandinavian settlers and farmers
Cumbrian families late 19th and 20th centuries, migrating for a better life to Canada and Australia
Normans 11th century, from northern France German miners 16th century, arrived in Keswick by royal invitation
Cumbrian men and boys 1920 - 30s to Southern England, seeking work
Irish people 18th century and earlier, working in agriculture, mining, linen manufacture Cornish miners 19th century, recruited to the iron mining industry 3
departures people in Cumbria through the years
Welsh metal workers 19th century specialist tin plate workers World War I & II Belgian and Polish refugees, holocaust survivors World War II child evacuees from the North East and farther afield
Neolithic peoples Langdale stone axes were traded all over Europe
Kosovans refugees from the 1999 Balkan conflict
Miners 19th & 20th centuries to work in mines across the world
Eastern Europeans Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Romanian and Bulgarians EU enlargements of 2004/7 Syrian refugees fleeing the conflict in Syria 2015-6 4
Mapping the world Cumbrians have moved around and arrived from every corner of the globe. But how do we see the world? The map of the world we are used to seeing is called the Mercator projection. It was first drawn in 1569, at a time when navigators were sailing on the oceans in wooden ships, powered by the wind, and navigating by the stars. Although it shows the shapes of the continents accurately, the sizes are out of scale. For example Africa is actually 14 times bigger than Greenland, but looks about the same size on this map.
Mercator Projection 5
In 1974 a new map of the world called the Peter’s Projection was created, and it caused quite a fuss. It is area accurate which means it shows just how big other continents are (and how small Europe is by comparison).
Peter's Projection
Have a look for the United Kingdom although it looks strange the relative sizes of the continents are correct. 6
Why do What drives or lures us to uproot ourselves and travel far from the places we know? Perhaps it’s handed down from our long-ago ancestors who followed and hunted the great herds, or who moved on when the wild fruit and grains were all gathered and eaten. Perhaps it’s just part of the human condition - curiosity about what lies beyond the horizon, over not this hill, but the next one. Some have ventured to Cumbria for love - like the Welsh girls who followed their local militia to West Cumberland and married their sweethearts in a strange place and a foreign tongue. 7
people move? Some seek a new life for themselves and their families think of the South East Asians working in the health service. Some come here to look for work, and others came and created it like Sekers, Bata, and Krauss who fled persecution in mainland Europe to begin successful factories in West Cumbria. Others voyaged afar like the Cumbrian miners who scattered across the world to Canada, South Africa, Australia or America in the 19th and 20th centuries, following their trade when the mines here hit hard times. And some came here to escape the ravages of war, to seek refuge and sanctuary: child refugees from the Spanish Civil War; holocaust survivors; Kosovans at the end of the 1990s and present day Syrians, not to mention many others.
Love, life, work, war or just plain curiosity? Driven, lured, desperate or adventurous - we are always on the move and always will be. 8
What do people say? Although I grew up outside Cumbria I’ve lived here all my adult life - and still feel like a bit of an ‘off-comer’ sometimes. I wonder what it is that makes you feel truly Cumbrian? UK immigrant, 2016
I had always heard that British people were quite cold but everyone was warm and welcoming with us. Kosovar refugee, Ulverston 2009
I really came to life in the Lake District. The landscape was beautiful and the fresh air was something so special... I had food, I was free. It was marvellous.
I was born in Scotland and moved to Cumbria in the early 1960s to play football. I was getting called Black this’ and ‘Black that’ by supporters and sometimes by players. Once, when I took a corner, the goalkeeper said to me “Go back to your jungle”. I replied in my broad Scottish accent “Let’s go back together, I came from the same jungle you are from”. He realised that I was Scottish, but with a different colour of skin.
Holocaust survivor, speaking in 2015
My first impressions were that it is much calmer here than in Poland. Polish immigrant, 2015
Black professional football player, Cumbria
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Cumbria in Numbers Between 2003-2013 The number of Cumbrian residents born outside the UK is less than a third of the national average (Cumbria: 3.7%, England & Wales: 13.4%) In 2013-14 an estimated 1,400 people moved in to Cumbria from overseas and an estimated 1,450 people moved out to live overseas, resulting in a net decrease of 50 persons Around 66% of non-UK migrants in Cumbria are from Eastern Europe, 8% from Nepal, 6% from the Philippines, 6% from Lithuania, 4% from Thailand Approximately a third of all non-UK migrants in Cumbria have a degree or post-graduate degree, which is the same level as the UK population 32% of non-UK migrants in Cumbria work in factories and manufacturing, 31% in hospitality and industry In 2013-14 approximately 10,600 young people aged 15 - 19 years moved out of Cumbria Source: Cumbria Intelligence Observatory, 2013-14 figures
Hidden Stories - Shared Lives is a Heritage Lottery funded project that looks behind the numbers to tell the real storyof migration in Cumbria today. See over for details. Images courtesy of Creative Commons, Cumbria Tourism
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Hidden Stories Shared Lives Celebrating migration in Cumbria through oral history
everyone comes from somewhere Working with volunteers Hidden Stories gathers, shares and celebrates migration stories connecting Cumbrians of different backgrounds, customs and faiths find out more at
www.hidden-stories.co.uk