William Wilson was born in the second quarter of 1866, the son of Miles Wilson and Jane (nee Cannon). Miles was 22 years the senior of Jane, and a farmer of 230 acres at High Lodore, Borrowdale, Keswick. They would have five sons, with William being the fourth, and four daughters, although two children were to die either at birth or in childhood. The father Miles died in 1884 and Jane, with the assistance of the older boys, kept the farm. When William grew up into young adulthood he assisted there, and on the forenoon of Monday 17th January 1887 he went to an intack (or intake/unthank, a small parcel of land of 12 hectacres, taken from a moor), in the Langstrath Valley, to check on sheep numbers. His older brother Miles had a similar errand, although nearer home, and he spoke with William about his route to the intack, advising him to take the lower valley path as he himself the previous week, had difficulty on the higher, shorter one. William set out with Miles who left him part way along the journey, as planned. That afternoon, the threatening weather of the morning became a winter storm in the valley of Borrowdale, with a strong south easterly wind driving the snow. William was expected to return later that afternoon but when this did not occur his mother became concerned about his well-being. His older brother Miles set out from High Lodore with a couple of friends and a dog to search for him; the fear was that he had slipped and had either seriously injured himself or had died in Langstrath. One other hope was held out, that he had taken shelter in a house of another, higher up the valley, so the men firstly checked this possibility, but to no-one had seen him. They journeyed further into Langstrath as the night wore on, sending the dog out to hunt the surrounding area. The dog returned without any success in locating the lost brother. It was sent out a second time and on this occasion, now approaching one o'clock, the sound of another dog was heard barking franticly. The two dogs were growling loudly at each other in the distance so the men made their way towards the noise. On reaching them Miles and his companions found the rigid frozen body of his brother William. He had come to rest at a place known as The Banks, below Sargisson's Crag (likely now called Sergeant's Crag). It was apparent from the surrounding marks that he had been higher up the fell, and had clearly not heeded his brother's earlier sound advice to remain on the longer but lower and safer path. The marks revealed that he had either been blown over, or had slipped and slid down the mountain about 100 yards before falling off an edge and fracturing his skull on a sharp nearby rock. This alone would have caused almost immediate death; he also had a fractured left leg. The faithful dog had remained with its master and from the marks in the snow it had clearly circled the corpse for a 20 yards diameter. Next to the body was an impression where it had lain, melting the snow by its own body heat.
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| Intack below Sergeant's Crag |
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| Sergeant's Crag and steep ascent |
The corpse of William was taken up by the three and transported back to High Lodore and to his grieving mother, Jane. The inquest was held at the Borrowdale Hotel at 2pm on Wednesday 19th and the verdict was 'Accidental Death'. The funeral later took place and he was buried in Stonethwaite Churchyard.