Not all the public memorials of Kendal’s great are clearly in public view but they can be found if one knows where to look.

Thomas Sandes is remem-bered by Sandes Hospital in Highgate where his coat of Arms, taken from those of the Company of Shearman Dyers, is displayed over the entrance arch.

He was a wealthy local wool tradesman and was Mayor of Kendal in 1647. Like many others of his ilk, he was philanthropic and opened his hospital as a home for eight poor widows, who had to earn their keep by carding, spinning and weaving wool for making Kendal cottons.

His hospital is his memorial, but there is a fine marble one of the usual kind in the parish church. You have to crane your neck upwards to see it perched above the entrance door and you have to use your knowledge of Latin to interpret the words.

Freely translated, they begin, ‘Ho, passerby! stand still, learn and imitate. Behold an illustrious exam-ple of virtue...’ continuing, ‘Distinguished promoter of industry, singular patron of letters, constant father of the poor’.

Whether he deserved such praise is a matter of opinion.

Another memorial not seen without looking for it is that for Mary Wakefield. An oval plaque bearing her likeness is to be found on the wall just inside the entrance to Kendal Town Hall.

She was the daughter of William Henry Wakefield, a banker and businessman. He founded a cocoa house in the town to provide an alternative to alcohol.

She absolutely loved music and was a singer from a young girl. At the age of six or seven she saved her pocket money and bought a violin, which she then learned to play.

She made her debut as a singer in public in 1873 at a concert organised by her aunt, Mrs Cropper, in aid of the Memorial Hospital.

She devised a musical competition in 1885 to raise funds for Crosscrake Church and from this, developed the Mary Wakefield Festival which is her real memorial. It became a popular occasion which continues to this day.

Samuel Coleridge Taylor, Sir Henry Wood, Dr Adrian Boult and Sir Malcolm Sargent have all conducted at the festival.

George Romney is another whose memorial lies outside himself. Coming from humble origins, he was apprenticed to portrait painter Christopher Steele, setting up for himself when he had attained proficiency in his art.

He scratched a living until, in his twenties, he went to London and began to achieve success as a portrait painter in his own right.

He travelled the continent and built up a fine reputation as an artist. By 1799 he became senile and returned to Kendal where his long-suffering wife nursed him in his last days.

There is a marble memorial to him in the parish church, near the font, decorated with an urn.

His house on the road at the entrance to the town from Milnthorpe bears a plaque to him, but perhaps his lasting memorial is the portrait of the Gower family – one of Abbot Hall Art Gallery’s most prized pieces.