Hardwicke Rawnsley money to buy Brandlehow Wood, the National Trust's first purchase in the Lake District. In 1898, 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 he was appointed to the largely 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. Rawnsley published more than forty books, mostly non-fiction, some on religious subjects, many with a Lake District
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty under the Charities Act 2006. Its formal purpose is: The trust was founded on 12 January 1895 by Octavia Hill (1838–1912), Sir Robert Hunter (1844–1913) and Hardwicke Rawnsley (1851–1920), prompted in part by the earlier success of Charles Eliot and the Kyrle Society. In the early days, the trust was concerned primarily with protecting open spaces and a variety of threatened buildings; its first property was Alfriston Clergy House, and a decorative cornice there may have given the trust its sprig of oak symbol. The trust's first nature reserve was Wicken Fen, and its first archaeological monument was White Barrow.