Robert Hunter (National Trust) to propagate the formation of a "National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty". In July 1894 the trust was formally inaugurated under the presidency of the Duke of Westminster. At the inaugural meeting Rawnsley declared, to cheering, that the aim was to establish "a great National Gallery of natural pictures". Hunter was appointed chairman of the executive committee. In the same year he was knighted for his services to conservation. Hunter had warned the inaugural meeting that the trust would be on a truly secure footing only if it obtained the permanent status granted by either a
Willingham Franklin Rawnsley Rawnsley donated some of the documents in the Franklin archive at the Royal Society of Tasmania. Rawnsley died on 18 February 1927. Willingham Franklin Rawnsley Willingham Franklin Rawnsley (1845?–1927) was a British author and the proprietor of a private school. Willingham Franklin Rawnsley was the oldest of ten children of the Rev. Drummond Rawnsley, rector of Halton Holgate in Lincolnshire, England, and Catherine Ann (Franklin) Rawnsley. The Arctic explorer John Franklin was his great-uncle, and as a child he served as a page at Alfred, Lord Tennyson's wedding. His younger brother Hardwicke became a Church of England clergyman and a