In reply to UKC Articles:
Matthew Entwistle‘s biography on Dalton is worth a read. Based on this, I don’t agree with the article's “inequality of access” spin. He was a lowly insurance clerk not a knight of the realm! Entwistle says the details of Dalton's friendship with the Epping Forest Keepers are uncertain. Dalton was though "charismatic and instantly likeable", which probably went a long way with his dealings in life.
It seems as though he rented the land for his camp above High Lodore Farm. The landowner of Castle Crag donated it to the NT in memory of his son and men of Borrowdale killed in WW1, so they may well have been of the benevolent type, and tuned a blind eye to the cave activities of the novelty/celebrity Dalton.
Incidentally it looks as though he didn’t quite get to climb in his eightieth year, he died early in 1947 aged 79.