top of page

Screen Shot 2021-11-01 at 6.28.42 PM.png

Millican Dalton: A Sublime Midlife Crisis

The relevance of a 20th century cave-dweller to environmental aesthetics.

Wednesday, 23 December 2020

borrowdale pic 1.jpg

At the mouth of the cave at Borrowdale, May 2020. Photograph: Lewis Eaton.

On a swelteringly hot day in the North Western Fells of The Lake District, the gaping mouth of a cave offered itself as a refuge and swallowed us mercifully into its cool damp interior. Caves are otherworldly places. This particular cave, set into the hillside of Castle Crag, allows you to peer out at the gently swaying trees and glimmering daylight of the outside world from a viewing point void of light and sound. The daytrip itself had been to seek refuge in The Lakes; an attempt at replacing the stagnancy of a locked-down city summer with a more welcome, less claustrophobic, kind of tranquillity. We spent a few minutes scrambling around on the siltstone, marvelling at the height of the cave walls and exchanging the obligatory comments about feeling small in big spaces. On leaving, I noticed a large, flat stone covered in scrawlings. At the centre in neat, deeply-etched letters read ‘Don’t Waste Words, Jump to Conclusions’ with dozens of smaller sections of writing surrounding this. Each gave names and dates, with many faded with age and dissolving back into the stone’s surface. It was from a frantic Googling during the car ride home that I came to find out we had happened across a sort-of pilgrimage place for hikers: the cave in which a man had lived out his summers for over forty consecutive years.

In 1904, at the age of thirty-six, Millican Dalton gave up his life as an insurance clerk in London in order to dedicate himself to The Great Outdoors. Having spent part of his childhood in Nenthead, the North Pennines, he found life and work in the capital stifling in comparison. From then on Dalton split his year, spending the summer months in the cave under Castle Crag and winters in a canvas hut in Buckinghamshire. Far from your conventional hermit, Dalton was an active and sociable member of the community. He organised camping excursions for the outdoors novice which included teaching hiking, rock climbing, rafting and how to forage for food. What I found extraordinary for the time was that these excursions didn’t exclude women, with one of Dalton’s advertisements for a mountaineering course stating his views bluntly: “Ladies are welcome to the camp. There is nothing new in ladies camping, the custom being at least 10,000 years old.” This rare indiscriminate approach led to Dalton forging a long-lasting friendship with geologist Mabel Barker, who over the years consistently recommended Dalton’s courses to women students and friends.

Millican and Mabel.jpg

Dalton and Barker atop a needle, 1913. The Mable Barker Collection.

Mar 4, 2016

Desert Island Disks: Thomas Bodinetz

This weeks Desert Islander, and head editor of The Courtauldian, is Thomas Bodinetz.

Top 3 Albums?

BB King, Live at the Regal, 1965 The greatest blues player at his best. He only played about five different notes yet said more through them than any other musician. Bahamas, Bahamas is Afie, 2014 Simply the best album of 2014.

Paul Simon, Graceland, 1986

Eighties pop meets Sun Records meets Isicathamiya singing. And Chevy Chase is in the video for You Can Call Me Al. What more could you want?

Favorite song? Sidney Bechet’s Si tu vois ma mere. The most timeless of New Orleans jazz.

Top 3 books?

Perspective as Symbolic Form by Erwin Panofsky Yes I'm a nerd but this is still one of the best art historical texts: a Kantian, cultural art historical model.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac Maybe I'm betraying some idealism of youth with this choice. Certainly Sal Paradise's pretense that he isn't as weird as everyone around him chimes with how I feel at Courtauld.

Collected Short Stories by Raymond Carver Prose as poetry: the greatest short story writer.

Top 3 films? A Matter of Life and Death A truly British technicolor romance with a prescient message of comradeship in the face of conflict.

The Breakfast Club The best of the Brat Pack. Young people pissing off their teacher: a must watch for all Courtauld students.

The Empire Strikes Back

I fucking love Star Wars!

Favorite artwork?

Sir Jacob Epstein, Jacob and the Angel (1940-1) Even if you know nothing of the biblical story, the power of this work is clear. The Herculean mass of the figures, the ambiguity of their embrace and the wild, organic veining of the alabaster show Epstein at his best. Even without reference to the sculpture's religious and wartime origins, I cannot help but be affected by its primitive energy.

Recent Posts

Navigating Copyright Amidst the Paradox of A.I. Authorship

Navigating Copyright Amidst the Paradox of A.I. Authorship

Eyeball it.

Eyeball it.

Time is Always Now: through the vision of African diaspora

Time is Always Now: through the vision of African diaspora

Doctor Who? Design Genius

Doctor Who? Design Genius

bottom of page