The community had a strong Quaker influence, and Wordsworth rejected their fixation on praising God for a relationship with the divine that would involve a more direct interaction. While attending Hawkshead School, he boarded with Hugh and Ann Tyson in the nearby hamlet of Colthouse. This is when Wordsworth gained his love for Latin literature. Most of his education at Hawkshead was mathematical, while the rest was based on teaching the classics. He was sent to Hawkshead Grammar School, where he was finally fully able to enjoy the countryside. He did not enjoy his time at Penrith, finding his relationship with his grandparents difficult, and would spend a lot of time away from home. However, it was here that he met the Hutchinsons, including Mary, who would be his future wife. There, he was taught by Ann Birkett, who insisted on instilling in her students traditions that included pursuing both scholarly and local activities, especially the festivals around Easter, May Day and Shrove Tuesday.Īt this school, Wordsworth was taught both the Bible and the Spectator, but little else.

Following his mother’s death, he was sent to a school in Penrith, which was a school for children of upper-class families. Wordsworth was first taught to read by his mother and was sent to a low quality school in Cockermouth.

She and Wordsworth did not meet again for another nine years. Wordsworth was taken in by his mother’s family, while Dorothy was sent to live with Elizabeth Threlkeld, Ann’s cousin, in Halifax. Following this, John Wordsworth became inconsolable and sent his children away to be raised by relatives. Wordsworth’s mother Ann died in Penrith in March 1778, possibly of pneumonia. Wordsworth had trouble with his relatives, particularly his grandparents and his uncle, which turned him further towards nature to seek solace. Wordsworth also spent time reading in Cockermouth, at his mother’s parents home in Penrith, particularly in the years of 1775-1777, where he was exposed to the moors and was influenced by his experience with the landscape. Wordsworth did not have a close relationship with his father, although he did teach him poetry, including that of Milton, Shakespeare and Spenser. John was born after Dorothy and became a poet until he died in a shipwreck in 1805, and the youngest sibling was Christopher, who became a scholar and eventually Master of Trinity College, Cambridge. His eldest brother was Robert and became a lawyer and his sister, the poet and diarist Dorothy, was born the year after him. Wordsworth was the second of five children that John and Ann had. John used his connections with the Lowther family to move into a large mansion in the small town of Cockermouth, Cumbria, in the Lake District. In 1766, John and Ann married when they were 26 and 18, respectively.

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