A. Wainwright, M.B.E. wrote over fifty hand-drawn guide books including his seven world-famous "Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells" before his death in 1991. Wainwright, in his generation, was as synonymous with the Lake District as Wordsworth was in his. The guides remain as a fitting memorial.
Alfred Wainwright also published two Furness Sketchbooks; each a collection of seventy-five drawings of scenes in the Furness Peninsula of Cumbria. The Wainwright drawing of St. James' Church, Barrow-in-Furness, being specially commissioned, was not among them. The charming story of how it came about has never before been publicly told.

When the Ven. Colin Stannard became Vicar of St. James' in March 1955, the parish magazine, constrained by wartime shortages, was ripe for improvement. A new printer was sought and a new cover. The new printer, Kentmere Ltd. at Staveley near Kendal, showed the vicar examples of other magazine covers then being printed. One, with special appeal, was a line drawing of St. Mary's, Windermere done, he was told, by  "the Borough Treasurer of Kendal who is quite good at this sort of thing."