Robert Hunter (National Trust) of a land surveyor, Samuel Cann. There were three daughters of the second marriage. In politics, "The Times" said, "Sir Robert was a robust thoughtful Liberal of the older type. As a speaker he was admirably clear and direct, articulate but not rhetorical, relying far more on the persuasive forced of exact statement than on appeals to emotion." In religion, he was a broad-church Anglican. Robert Hunter (National Trust) Sir Robert Hunter (27 October 1844 – 6 November 1913) was a solicitor, civil servant and co-founder of the National Trust. From the 1860s Hunter was interested in conservation of public
Hardwicke Rawnsley to protect the countryside. In 1883, having secured the support of Robert Hunter, solicitor to the Commons Preservation Society, the social reformer Octavia Hill, and John Ruskin, under whose influence Rawnsley had come while at Oxford, Rawnsley successfully led a campaign to prevent the construction of railways to carry slate from the quarries above Buttermere, which would have ruined the unspoilt valleys of Newlands and Ennerdale. This success led to the formation of the Lake District Defence Society (later to become The Friends of the Lake District). Besides Rawnsley, members included Robert Browning, the Duke of Westminster, Ruskin, and Alfred,