Robert Hunter (National Trust) preserve them for the nation. At Hunter's suggestion it was entitled "the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty", generally known simply as "the National Trust". Hunter was the founding chairman of the trust's executive board. From 1882 until the year of his death Hunter was solicitor to the General Post Office. His negotiations in that capacity were estimated to have saved the British taxpayer many millions of pounds. Hunter was born in the south London suburb of Camberwell, the elder child and only son of Robert Lachlan Hunter, a master mariner and shipowner, and his wife,
Robert Hunter (National Trust) and other open spaces threatened with enclosure. Most of the principles of public interest expounded in his 1866 essay were incorporated into English law in 1875. From the latter year onwards, Hunter was Octavia Hill's adviser on the protection of open spaces in London. One of Hunter's most celebrated successes was the rescue from enclosure of 3,000 acres of Epping Forest, with the support of the corporation of the City of London. The case was bitterly contested across three years. Hunter acted with the corporation's solicitor, Sir Thomas Nelson, in the conduct of the legal proceedings. In 1882 Queen Victoria