Wordsworth's Stamp Office, Ambleside, Cumbria
N 54° 25.857 W 002° 57.747
30U E 502435 N 6031471
William Wordsworth worked from this office, as Distributor of Stamps for Westmorland, whilst living at Rydal Mount. The £400 a year from this post made him financially secure.
Waymark Code: WMTK5
Location: North West England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 10/08/2006
Views: 80
The acceptance of a government job by the former radical was seen as a betrayal. As Robert Browning wrote in The Lost Leader: "Just for a handful of silver he left us." Wordsworth compounded his treachery, in the eyes of the younger generation of poets, by campaigning for Tory politicians in the 1818 and 1820 elections.
William Wordsworth was considered the greatest poet in the world, and a national institution, in his day. In 1813 the Wordsworths moved to Rydal Mount, where William and Mary, his wife, stayed until their deaths in 1850 and 1859. In 1820 he published his 'Guide through the District of the Lakes'. In 1842 he became the Poet Laureate, and resigned his office as Stamp Distributor.
Writers at the time mocked Wordsworth for his “turncoat” politics; a former radical taking a government post. In the same year, Robert Southey became the ultimate “establishment” poet by accepting the office of Poet Laureate (after Walter Scott had turned it down). (
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Plaque reads
The office of William Wordsworth as Distributor of stamps for Westmorland. March 1813 to July 1843.
The office in Ambleside now houses a hairdressing salon and a very good restaurant called Stampers.
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