the Duddon and Morecambe Bay lies Walney Island, 8 m. in length, and in the shallow strait between it and the mainland are several smaller islands. That part of Furness which forms a peninsula between the Leven estuary and Morecambe Bay, and the Duddon estuary, is rich in hematite iron ore, which has been worked from very early times. It was known and smelted by British and Romans, and by the monks of Furness Abbey and Conishead Priory, both in the district. It was owing to the existence of this ore that the town of Barrow grew up in the 19th century; at first as a port from which the ore was exported to South Wales, while later furnaces were established on the spot, and acquired additional importance on the introduction of the Bessemer process, which requires a non-phosphoric ore such as is found here. The hematite is also worked at Ulverston, Askam, Dalton and elsewhere, but the furnaces now depend in part upon ore imported from Spain. The supposed extension of the ore under the sands of the Duddon estuary led to the construction of a sea wall to facilitate the working. The district is served by the main line of the Furness railway, from Carnforth (junction with the London & North-Western railway), passing the pleasant watering-place of Grange, and approximately following the coast by Ulverston, Dalton and Barrow, with branches to Lake Side, Windermere, and to Coniston.
Apart from its industrial importance and scenic attractions, Furness has an especial interest on account of its famous abbey. The ruins of this, beautifully situated in a wooded valley, are extensive, and mainly of fine transitional Norman and Early English date, acquiring additional Furness Abbey. picturesqueness from the warm colour of the red sandstone of which they are built. The abbey of Furness, otherwise Furdenesia or the further nese (promontory), which was dedicated to St Mary, was founded in 1127 by a small body of monks belonging to the Benedictine order of Savigny. In 1124 they had settled at Tulketh, near Preston, but migrated in 1127 to Furness under the auspices of Stephen, count of Boulogne, afterwards king, at that time lord of the liberty of Furness. In 1148 the brotherhood joined the Cistercian order. Stephen granted to the monks the lordship of Furness, and his charter was confirmed by Henry I., Henry II. and subsequent kings. The abbot’s power throughout the lordship was almost absolute; he had a market and fair at Dalton, was free from service to the county and wapentake, and held a sheriff’s tourn. By a succession of gifts the abbey became one of the richest in England and was the largest Cistercian foundation in the kingdom. At the Dissolution its revenues amounted to between £750 and £800 a year, exclusive of meadows, pastures, fisheries, mines, mills and salt works, and the wealth of the monks enabled them to practise a regal hospitality. The abbot was one of the twenty Cistercian abbots summoned to the parliament of 1264, but was not cited after 1330, as he did not hold of the king in capite per baroniam. The abbey founded several offshoot houses, one of the most important being Rushen Abbey in the Isle of Man. In 1535 the royal commissioners visited the abbey and reported four of its inmates, including the abbot, for incontinence. In 1536 the abbot was charged with complicity in the Pilgrimage of Grace, and on the 7th of April 1537, under compulsion, surrendered the abbey to the king. A few monks were granted pensions, and the abbot was endowed with the profits of the rectory of Dalton, valued at £33, 6s. 8d. per annum. In 1540 the estates and revenues were annexed by act of parliament to the Duchy of Lancaster. About James I.’s reign the site and territories were alienated to the Prestons of Preston-Patrick, from whom they descended to the dukes of Devonshire.
Conishead Priory, near Ulverston, an Augustinian foundation of the reign of Henry II., has left no remains, but of the priory of Cartmel (1188) the fine church is still in use. It is a cruciform structure of transitional Norman and later dates, its central tower having the upper storey set diagonally upon the lower. The chancel contains some superb Jacobean carved oak screens, with stalls of earlier date.
FURNISS, HARRY (1854–), British caricaturist and
illustrator, was born at Wexford, Ireland, of English and Scottish
parents. He was educated in Dublin, and in his schooldays
edited a Schoolboy’s Punch in close imitation of the original.
He came to London when he was nineteen, and began to draw
for the illustrated papers, being for some years a regular contributor
to the Illustrated London News. His first drawing in Punch
appeared in 1880, and he joined its staff in 1884. He illustrated
Lucy’s “Diary of Toby, M.P.,” in Punch, where his political
caricatures became a popular feature. Among his other successes
were a series of “Puzzle Heads,” and his annual “Royal
Academy guy’d.” In Royal Academy Antics (1890) he published
a volume of caricatures of the work of leading artists. He
resigned from the staff of Punch in 1894, produced for a short
time a weekly comic paper Lika Joko, and in 1898 began a
humorous monthly, Fair Game; but these were short-lived.
Among the numerous books he illustrated were James Payn’s
Talk of the Town, Lewis Carroll’s Sylvie and Bruno, Gilbert à
Beckett’s Comic Blackstone, G. E. Farrow’s Wallypug Book,
and his own novel, Poverty Bay (1905). Our Joe, his great Fight
(1903), was a collection of original cartoons. His volume of
reminiscences, Confessions of a Caricaturist (1901), was followed
by Harry Furniss at Home (1904). In 1905 he published How to
draw in Pen and Ink, and produced the first number of Harry
Furniss’s Christmas Annual.
FURNITURE (from “furnish,” Fr. fournir), a general term
of obscure origin, used to describe the chattels and fittings required
to adapt houses and other buildings for use. Wood,
ivory, precious stones, bronze, silver and gold have been used
from the most ancient times in the construction or for the
decoration of furniture. The kinds of objects required for
furniture have varied according to the changes of manners and
customs, as well as with reference to the materials at the command
of the workman, in different climates and countries.
Of really ancient furniture there are very few surviving examples,
partly by reason of the perishable materials of which it was usually
constructed; and partly because, however great may have been
the splendour of Egypt, however consummate the taste of Greece,
however luxurious the life of Rome, the number of household
appliances was very limited. The chair, the couch, the table,
the bed, were virtually the entire furniture of early peoples,
whatever the degree of their civilization, and so they remained
until the close of what are known in European history as the
middle ages. During the long empire-strewn centuries which
intervened between the lapse of Egypt and the obliteration of
Babylon, the extinction of Greece and the dismemberment of
Rome and the great awakening of the Renaissance, household
comfort developed but little. The Ptolemies were as well lodged
as the Plantagenets, and peoples who spent their lives in the
open air, going to bed in the early hours of darkness, and rising
as soon as it was light, needed but little household furniture.
Indoor life and the growth of sedentary habits exercised a powerful influence upon the development of furniture. From being splendid, or at least massive, and exceedingly sparse and costly, it gradually became light, plentiful and cheap. In the ancient civilizations, as in the periods when our own was slowly growing, household plenishings, save in the rudest and most elementary forms, were the privilege of the great—no person of mean degree could have obtained, or would have dared to use if he could, what is now the commonest object in every house, the chair (q.v.). Sparse examples of the furniture of Egypt, Nineveh, Greece and Rome are to be found in museums; but our chief sources of information are mural and sepulchral paintings and sculptures. The Egyptians used wooden furniture carved and gilded, covered with splendid textiles, and supported upon the legs of wild animals; they employed chests and coffers as receptacles for clothes, valuables and small objects generally. Wild animals and beasts of the chase were carved upon the furniture of Nineveh also; the lion, the bull and the ram were especially characteristic. The Assyrians were magnificent in their household appointments; their tables and couches were inlaid with ivory and precious metals. Cedar and ebony were much used by these great Eastern peoples, and it is probable that they were familiar with rosewood, walnut and teak. Solomon’s
