Mary Louisa Armitt (31 July 1851 – 24 September 1911) was an English polymath. She was a teacher, writer, ornithologist and philanthropist. She was the funder and founder of the

Armitt Library The Armitt Museum, also known as the Armitt Museum and Library, is an independent museum and library, founded in Ambleside in Cumbria by Mary Louisa Armitt in 1909. It is a registered charity under English law. History The library was founded b ...

, Ambleside.

Life

Armitt was born in

Salford Salford () is a city and the largest settlement in the City of Salford metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. In 2011, Salford had a population of 103,886. It is also the second and only other city in the metropolitan county afte ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

in 1851. She was one of three gifted daughters who were born to William and Mary Ann Armitt (née Whalley). All three girls wrote, and they all attended Islington House Academy, but each specialised in a different subject.Eileen Jay, "Armitt, Mary Louisa (1851–1911)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 12 Nov 2015
/ref> This academy was in

and it trained people to teach along

Pestalozzian Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (, ; 12 January 1746 – 17 February 1827) was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer who exemplified Romanticism in his approach. He founded several educational institutions both in German- and French-speaking r ...

principles. Sophia, who was born in 1847, took botany and art while her younger sister Annie Maria, who was born in 1850, studied English literature. Mary—who was known as Louie—was the youngest and excelled at music and natural history. She was educated at the Mechanics' Institute in Manchester as soon as she was of age. The three sisters were all teenagers when their father died. They were well educated so they established a school at Eccles in Lancashire. The eldest child at the school was fourteen, which was only a year younger than Armitt. The three girls spent their spare time attending recitals, art exhibitions, and lectures. They wrote, sketched, and discussed natural history at meetings. Armitt and Sophie both discussed their ambitions with

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English writer, philosopher, art critic and polymath of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as geology, architecture, myth, ornithology, literature, education, botany and politi ...

, who encouraged Sophie to study art but told Armitt not to write but to devote herself to women's activities. Luckily Armitt eventually ignored Ruskin's advice and began regular contributions to the ''

Manchester City News ''Manchester City News'' was a weekly local newspaper founded in Manchester, England. Published every Saturday, the first edition went on sale on 2 January 1864, priced at one penny. The newspaper was circulated not only in Manchester and neighb ...

'' in 1877. She was assisted in her studies by a scholarship from

Trinity College, Cambridge Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Founded in 1546 by Henry VIII, King Henry VIII, Trinity is one of the largest Cambridge colleges, with the largest financial endowment of any college at either Cambridge ...

and by becoming a reader at the

Bodleian Library The Bodleian Library () is the main research library of the University of Oxford, and is one of the oldest libraries in Europe. It derives its name from its founder, Sir Thomas Bodley. With over 13 million printed items, it is the second- ...

in Oxford.Armitt Sisters
Armitt Museum and Art Gallery, Retrieved 12 November 2015 One of Armitt's notable areas of study was music. She wrote a number of articles on the history of music and also was a music critic for the ''Manchester City News''. In 1886 Armitt and Sophie retired to

Hawkshead Hawkshead is a village and civil parish in Cumbria, England, which attracts tourists to the South Lakeland area. The parish includes the hamlets of Hawkshead Hill, to the north west, and Outgate, a similar distance north. Hawkshead contains one ...

, near where Annie was already living, and continued their cultural interests, talking to artists, writers and educationalists like

Charlotte Mason Charlotte Maria Shaw Mason (1 January 1842 – 16 January 1923) was a British educator and reformer in England at the turn of the twentieth century. She proposed to base the education of children upon a wide and liberal curriculum. She was ins ...

and

Frances Arnold Frances Hamilton Arnold (born July 25, 1956) is an American chemical engineer and Nobel Laureate. She is the Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). In ...

. Mason, who ran a school for governesses, was publishing the ''Parents Review'',"Parents' Review"
AmblesideOnline Parents' Review Article Archive, Retrieved 11 November 2015 and Mary contributed articles for it. By 1894 Annie was a widow and had moved in with her sisters and Armitt was so ill with heart trouble that she was prevented from travelling far. She mitigated this by joining the

London Library The London Library is an independent lending library in London, established in 1841. It was founded on the initiative of Thomas Carlyle, who was dissatisfied with some of the policies at the British Museum Library. It is located at 14 St James's ...

. In 1897 she published ''Studies of Lakeland Birds'', a book that gathered together articles from the ''

Westmorland Gazette ''The Westmorland Gazette'' is a weekly newspaper published in Kendal, England, covering "South Lakeland and surrounding areas", including Barrow and North Lancashire. Its name refers to the historic county of Westmorland. The paper is now owned by ...

''.

Death and legacy

Armitt died in Rydal in 1911 and was buried in Ambleside. By then, her library included two earlier collections dating from 1828 and 1882. The latter was John Ruskin's Ambleside library, and the former was an early collection from the Ambleside Book Club,Armitt Library
, independentlibraries.co.uk, retrieved 11 November 2015 to which William Wordsworth had been a subscriber. The Armitt Library was officially opened in 1912. On 8 November 1912 a friend of the Armitts', Canon

Hardwicke Rawnsley Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley (29 September 1851 – 28 May 1920) was an Anglican priest, poet, local politician and conservationist. He became nationally and internationally known as one of the three founders of the National Trust for Places of H ...

, who was to co-found the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

, read his poem in celebration. The poem starts: ::As in some inland solitude a shell :::Still gently whispers of its home, the deep, ::So from the world of being beyond all sleep :::Where those two happy sister spirits dwell... The "two happy sister spirits" were Armitt, who had died the year before, and Sophie, who had died in 1908. In 1912, Armitt's history of Grasmere Church was published posthumously. In 1916,

Willingham Franklin Rawnsley Willingham Franklin Rawnsley (1845?–1927) was a British author and the proprietor of a private school. Biography Willingham Franklin Rawnsley was the oldest of ten children of the Rev. Drummond Rawnsley, rector of Halton Holgate in Lincolnshire ...

finished editing Armitt's notes on local history, which she had partially researched at Rydal Hall.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Armitt, Mary 1851 births 1911 deaths People from Salford English women writers English ornithologists People from Hawkshead