Keswick School of Industrial Art

Keswick School of Industrial Art (KSIA) (sometimes Keswick School of Industrial Arts) was founded in 1884 by Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley and his wife Edith as an evening class in woodwork and repoussé metalwork at the Crosthwaite Parish Rooms, in Keswick, Cumbria. The enterprise, designed to alleviate unemployment, prospered, and within ten years more than a hundred men were attending classes. A new building was erected for the school at a nearby site. The school closed in 1984 and the building became a restaurant. History Rawnsley was the vicar of Crosthwaite, at the edge of Keswick, from 1883 to 1917. He was one of the three co-founders of the National Trust and was a prominent figure in philanthropic enterprises in the area, helping to establish a grammar school, a hospital and a farm school.