62 Facts About Hardwicke Rawnsley

Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley was an Anglican priest, poet, local politician and conservationist.

Hardwicke Rawnsley became nationally and internationally known as one of the three founders of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty in the 1890s.

Hardwicke Rawnsley soon became a vigorous activist in the campaign to preserve the region from excessive industrial development.

In 1883 Hardwicke Rawnsley was appointed Vicar of Crosthwaite, Cumberland, in the north of the Lake District.

Hardwicke Rawnsley remained in the post for 34 years, becoming known locally and nationally for his energetic efforts to improve life for working people.

Hardwicke Rawnsley was a prolific writer, publishing more than 40 books, including verse, sermons, historical studies, travel accounts and biographies.

Hardwicke Rawnsley retired in 1917 and moved to the village of Grasmere, in the southern Lake District, where he died in 1920, aged 68.

Hardwicke Rawnsley was the second son and fourth of the ten children of the Rev Robert Drummond Burrell Rawnsley and his wife, Catherine Ann, nee Franklin.

In 1862 Drummond Hardwicke Rawnsley accepted the post of vicar of Halton Holegate in the fen district of Lincolnshire.

Later in 1862, aged eleven, Hardwicke Rawnsley enrolled at Uppingham School, where his godfather, Edward Thring, was headmaster.

Thring became a major influence on him: Hardwicke Rawnsley excelled at athletics and gymnastics, but Thring encouraged his aesthetic side, particularly his budding gifts as a poet.

Hardwicke Rawnsley quickly came to share the enthusiasm shown by Wordsworth and others for the Lake District landscape.

In 1870, Hardwicke Rawnsley went up to Balliol College, Oxford, initially reading classics but switching after two years to natural sciences, with the intention of becoming a medical practitioner.

Hardwicke Rawnsley was at first an exuberant undergraduate, prominent in athletics and rowing, and not conspicuously conscientious about his studies.

Hardwicke Rawnsley's outlook became more serious under the influence of the art critic and social campaigner John Ruskin.

The project foundered after two months when Ruskin left for Venice, but for Hardwicke Rawnsley it was, in Griffiths's words, "life-changing, his social conscience awakened".

Hardwicke Rawnsley began to think that the Church rather than medicine was his vocation.

Hardwicke Rawnsley was appointed lay-chaplain to the Newport Market Refuge, a hostel for the destitute, in the parish of St Mary's, Soho, an insalubrious part of London known for prostitution and poverty.

Ruskin introduced him to Octavia Hill, the pioneer of social housing, and Hardwicke Rawnsley added to his workload the role of rent-collector for Hill's colleague Emma Cons.

The eldest daughter of his host and hostess was Edith Fletcher ; she and Hardwicke Rawnsley were mutually attracted, with shared interests in art, literature and nature.

At first there was no building in which services could be held, but Hardwicke Rawnsley secured a disused factory workshop and converted it into a chapel.

Hardwicke Rawnsley campaigned to save the disused 14th-century St Werburgh's Church from demolition.

Hardwicke Rawnsley's enthusiasms did not endear him to the conservative hierarchy of the Bristol church, but when he left his post in 1877 he was presented with a testimonial to his work by the mayor and other leading citizens.

The post of vicar there became vacant and Edward offered it to Hardwicke Rawnsley, who was ordained priest in Carlisle Cathedral on 23 December 1877 and took up the appointment at Wray.

Hardwicke Rawnsley had already been involved in a conservation campaign, unsuccessfully opposing the damming of Thirlmere to create a reservoir for the city of Manchester, nearly 100 miles away.

Hardwicke Rawnsley visited Ruskin frequently, and in 1880 they discussed "how to add happiness to the country labourer's lot".

Ruskin suggested reviving the old craft of hand-spinning and weaving wool; Hardwicke Rawnsley, considering this infeasible, opted for wood carving.

Hardwicke Rawnsley was the first published author she had met, and he took a great interest in her drawings, supporting her in her determination to have them taken seriously and later encouraging her to publish her first book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Hardwicke Rawnsley held meetings, lobbied assiduously and wrote prolifically to legislators and newspapers.

Griffiths writes that although by no means solely responsible for the successful outcome of the campaign, Hardwicke Rawnsley "became a local and national hero almost overnight, and a new awareness of landscape preservation came to the fore".

Hardwicke Rawnsley proposed the foundation of the organisation at a meeting of the Wordsworth Society in 1883.

Hardwicke Rawnsley maintained that for the sake of Wordsworth's literary heritage it was necessary to protect the landscape that had inspired him.

Besides Hardwicke Rawnsley, founder-members included Ruskin, Robert Browning, the Duke of Westminster and Alfred, Lord Tennyson, with whom Hardwicke Rawnsley had a family connection.

Hardwicke Rawnsley threw himself vigorously into parish life, "friend to both landowner and boatman, tourist and local" in Griffiths's words.

Hardwicke Rawnsley was mindful of advice given to him by William Morris:.

The classes, for men only, were held in the parish rooms near the centre of the town, under the supervision of Edith Hardwicke Rawnsley, assisted by a local designer and another professional from the South Kensington School of Design.

Hardwicke Rawnsley was proud that when Ruskin died in 1900, the pall for the coffin was handspun and handwoven in Keswick under Twelves's direction.

In 1887 Hardwicke Rawnsley revived the moribund Keswick and District Footpath Preservation Society, with the principal aim of stopping landowners blocking public rights of way across their land.

When persuasion failed, Hardwicke Rawnsley led hundreds of demonstrators to demolish the barriers.

Hardwicke Rawnsley was chairman of the school's board of governors, and Cumberland's director of education described him as "the real founder of the Keswick High School".

When English local government was reorganised in the late 1880s Hardwicke Rawnsley stood as an independent Liberal for the newly formed Cumberland County Council in January 1889.

Hardwicke Rawnsley stood out against the construction of roads over lakeland passes, secured controls over mining pollution, and promoted adequate signposting of footpaths.

Hardwicke Rawnsley lost his seat on the council in 1895, the vote probably tipped by objections to his firm stance on public houses and alcohol licensing.

In 1893 several important properties in the Lake District came up for sale, and Hardwicke Rawnsley went to London to discuss with Hunter and Hill how the sites might be acquired for the public.

An inaugural meeting was convened at Grosvenor House, London, in July 1894; Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley were elected chairman and secretary respectively.

Until his death, Hardwicke Rawnsley worked as honorary secretary to the Trust.

Hardwicke Rawnsley was active elsewhere in the country on the National Trust's behalf.

Hardwicke Rawnsley published accounts of his trips and books of poetry inspired by them.

Hardwicke Rawnsley took a leading role in the erection of monuments to Wordsworth, Caedmon and Bede.

Hardwicke Rawnsley encouraged young people not to attend "lurid crime films at kinemas", and turn instead to wholesome organisations such as the YMCA, Boy Scouts and Girl Guides.

In 1898 Hardwicke Rawnsley was offered the bishopric of Madagascar, but declined it, feeling himself committed to his conservation work in the Lake District and, by then, in many other parts of the British countryside.

In 1912 Hardwicke Rawnsley was appointed to the honorary position of chaplain to the king, and he held the post of chaplain to the Border Regiment of the Territorial Force, with the rank of colonel.

Hardwicke Rawnsley urged the young men of Cumberland to fight "for home and Empire".

Hardwicke Rawnsley's confidence was shaken as the war went on and the lists of casualties grew longer and longer.

In 1915, with a view to eventual retirement, Hardwicke Rawnsley bought Allan Bank, Grasmere, a house in which Wordsworth had lived between 1808 and 1811.

Hardwicke Rawnsley, who had caught influenza, was too ill to attend her funeral.

Hardwicke Rawnsley felt unable to carry on without Edith's help, and the week after Easter 1917 he resigned from St Kentigern's after 34 years and retired to Allan Bank.

Hardwicke Rawnsley continued his work for the National Trust and remained an active Canon of Carlisle.

Hardwicke Rawnsley suffered a heart attack and died at Allan Bank on 28 May 1920, after a brief illness.

Hardwicke Rawnsley was buried in the churchyard of St Kentigern's alongside Edith.

Hardwicke Rawnsley bequeathed Allan Bank to the National Trust, with a lifetime lease to Eleanor, who lived there until her death in 1959.

Eleanor Hardwicke Rawnsley wrote a biography of her husband, published by his regular publisher, MacLehose, in 1923.