Armitt Library Armitt Library Armitt Museum 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. The library was founded by a bequest of Mary Louisa Armitt in order that the intellectual activity of Ambleside could be celebrated. The roots of the organisation go back to the Ambleside Book Society which was founded in 1828 and which formed part of the library. On 8 November 1912 the library opened and Hardwicke Rawnsley who was to co-found the National Trust wrote a poem in celebration. The poem starts:
Octavia Hill Octavia Hill Society at her birthplace. Octavia Hill was the daughter of James Hill, corn merchant, follower of Owenism and banker, and his third wife, Caroline Southwood Smith. He had been widowed twice, and had six children (five daughters and a son) from his previous marriages. He had been impressed by the writings on education of Caroline Southwood Smith, the daughter of Dr Thomas Southwood Smith, a pioneer of sanitary reform. He had engaged Caroline as a governess for his children in 1832, and they were married in 1835, three years before Octavia was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, her father's