Perhaps I'm missing the obvious as far as the maps are concerned, it certainly wouldn't surprise me!
I think your persistance, despite me moving the goalposts as I looked into the history of the binding itself, has won through. Unlike the others, Ann(e), daughter of Thomas, ticks every single box.
The binding with the coloured endpapers and machine made headbands certainly fits the 1860/70s very well and the location is right. As for the long s, it continued in handwriting long after it stopped being used in printing; according to Wikipedia it continued to be used in handwriting into the mid 1800s and it gives examples of it still being used in the 1880s. Schooling wasn't compulsory at that time, and if girls were being taught to write by mothers and grandmothers it's easy to see how it could have been passed on. Interestingly she hasn't used the long s for Drigg Cross.
How nice that Ann(e) seems to have ended up comfortably off. I'll make a copy of what you've discovered, that I can put inside the book.
Edited to add that I've now turned up a William Steel aged 13 on the 1861 census. Living at Hagget End, Egremont with his mother aged 35 and two sisters Jane aged 14 and Margaret 4. Occupation farmer's son. His father, Joseph, who only appears on the 1851 census is listed on that as an Iron Miner, born in Drigg.
Edited again to add that it looks as though Hannah, the sister of Thomas, may have married a John Steel, born in Scotland and a Railway Labourer. The 1851 census shows their son William aged 3 was born at Drigg, there's also a daughter Elizabeth Sharp aged 5 and Ann aged under a year.
Seems like there's more than one William Steel(e)s with a Drigg connection born around the same time! I can't find any further trace of these two beyond 1861.
