Following an approach which Mrs Jill Wesson –  about to move home –  made to the Federation chairman, Professor Peter Roebuck, seeking help, a good home has recently  been found in the Local History section of Kendal Library for fourteen volumes of publications, including local pamphlets, concerning Westmorland, which Mrs Wesson’s  father, Mr W P Dobson, had collected and had devotedly had bound up.

Mr William Percival Dobson (1906 – 76), who for many years owned and ran the Bela Comb Mill at Milnthorpe, devoted a lifetime of service to the community, serving as a member of both Westmorland County Council (serving as Vice-Chairman) and South Westmorland Rural District Council (serving three terms as chairman).Throughout his life, Mr Dobson built up a collection of records relating to Milnthorpe and Kendal and to local government in Westmorland which have been deposited with Kendal Archive Centre.

The volumes of publications which have now found a home at Kendal Library include those entitled ‘Westmorland Tracts’,  ‘Westmorland Booklets Education etc’, ‘Westmorland Dialect’, and ‘Lakeland Pamphlets’.

Whether or not readers are moving home, it is to be hoped that they might consider making provisions such that records  of potential long-term historical value that they hold are identified and arrangements perhaps made for their appropriate deposit such that future generations of local historians will be in their debt.

Adrian Allan