William's father had spent a lot of time away on business but did encourage William to read widely and commit verse to memory, using his father's library. I took the foil in my hand, but my heart failed." "I was of a stiff, moody, and violent temper so much so that I remember going once into the attic of my grandfather's house at Penrith, upon some indignity having been put upon me, with an intention of destroying myself with one of the foils which I knew were kept there. when William was in his fourteenth year, and had just completed his ninth year at Hawkshead, where his older brother Richard also went to school. His father never recovered from his wife's death, and died in 1783. His mother, Anne, died in March 1778 of a decline brought on by a cold. William's grandfather moved to Westmoreland from Peniston, Yorshire, where his family had lived since before the Norman Conquest (according to William), and purchased the estate of Sockbridge.
There had been Crackanthorps at Newbiggen Hall since the time of Edward III. His mother was Anne, the only daughter of William Cookson, mercer of Penrith, and his wife Dorothy, nee Crackanthorp of Newbiggen Hall, Westmoreland. William was the second son of John Wordsworth, attorney-at-law and law-agent to Sir James Lowther, afterwards Earl of Lonsdale. He was baptised on 18 January 1772 at All Saints, Cockermouth, Cumberland, England with father John Wordsworth. William Wordsworth was born on 7 April 1770 at Cockermouth in Cumberland, England.