Blossom’s Photo Gallery

Sir John Barrow of Ulverston – 1764-1848

Ulverston, Cumbria, Northern England.

Featured in Cee’s Fun Artsy Friends (Host Features) and Cumbria…Outside the Park

Sir John Barrow was a naval administrator and traveller. He was born at Dragley Beck, Ulverston, Cumbria, England* in 1764.

This beautiful mural was painted by Gill Barron to coincide with the opening of the restored Sir John Barrow monument (The Hoad) in August 2010.

John Barrow was a remarkable man whose story is told on the mural in fascinating detail. He lived through the American, Industrial and French Revolutions; the Napoleonic Wars and the rapid expansion of the British Empire.
By the age 14 he had already risked his life repeating Franklin’s experiment, gathering electricity in a storm with a kite and wet string, started a Sunday School, surveyed the Cornishead Priory Estate and left home to become head book-keeper and manager at an iron-foundry in Liverpool!
At the age of 20 he had been whaling off Greenland and been thrown onto an ice shelf as a whale’s tail tossed his boat through the air and smashed it!
He became Auditor-General of Public Accounts in the new Cape Colony, which had been seized from the Dutch to prevent Napoleon gaining control of the sea route to India. Here he traveled over 2000 miles, about half on foot, to produce the first map of the Colony and was charged with attempting to resolve the many disputes with and between the Boers and the native tribes that ultimately led to the Zulu and Boer wars.
In 1804 he became the first permanent civil servant in Britain as Second Secretary to the Admiralty, holding the post for almost 40 years.

Sir John Barrow

Sir John Barrow Monument

Canon PowerShot A650IS

Shutter Speed: 1/60sec
Aperture: F2.8
ISO: 200