Fellow Governors,—My wife and I have long felt that it would be a gain to the Keswick School if it could offer a scholarship at the Universities or some other place of higher learning.  We have also the wish to express our gratitude to the brave men of this ancient parish of Crosthwaite and men of Keswick and district who have responded to their country’s call, and who have determined to offer themselves and their lives in defence of home and Empire.  If, then, the Governors of the School will accept our gift, on the day of signing the Articles of Peace we will hand over the title deeds of Riggside Farm and Borrodale Gates as a memorial to these gallant men, for the purpose of founding this scholarship of the annual value of £50 a year in connexion with the Keswick School.

We should wish that out of the proceeds not used for the scholarship purposes there should, if possible, from time to time be some help given towards the entrance fees of those who enter training college for teachers, and towards school fees for those of minor scholarship standard, who from age or from not having been born in the ancient parish of Crosthwaite have been debarred from competing for the ordinary entrance scholarship, or from obtaining help from other sources.  If the fund allowed of it, we should be glad that a small silver medal with or without a book prize, should be given each year to the best writer of a prize poem and the best reciter or reader aloud of prose and poetry.

We do not wish to fetter the Governors and the Headmaster in any way, but we are anxious that this gift should not be applied to school expenses, but should be put to a Scholarship Account.  In event of the school ever ceasing to be a dual school, the proceeds of this fund should be divided between the boys’ and girls’ schools.  In event of no candidates being forthcoming, it should be in the power of the Governors to throw the scholarship open to the county, or to such part of the county as they think wise.

We suggest it would be possible to arrange that the winner of the scholarship might give an undertaking to repay, say, one-third of the scholarship in the first five years of their professional life, and thus enable others after them to benefit from the Scholarship Fund.  We are also wishful that in the deed of gift a clause should be inserted to the effect that except for the need of the farm or the need of the house, Borrodale Gates, no building except for educational purposes should ever be built upon the property thus given, and we naturally desire that present tenants should not be disturbed in their occupancy.

We hope that as an inspiration to future scholars a roll of honour may at the end of the war be placed in the School, and we shall be glad to pay for it. H. D. Rawnsley, Edith Rawnsley.

(Carlisle Journal, 26 March 1915, p. 7)