Willingham Franklin Rawnsley 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 founder of the National Trust. Rawnsley was educated at Christ Church and Corpus Christi Colleges at Oxford University, where he took honours
Octavia Hill Hospital in the East End inspired Octavia Hill's concern for the poorest in early Victorian London. She received no formal schooling: her mother educated the family at home. The family settled in a small cottage in Finchley, now a north London suburb, but then a village. Octavia Hill was impressed and moved by Henry Mayhew's "London Labour and the London Poor", a book that portrayed the daily lives of slum dwellers. She was also strongly influenced by the theologian, Anglican priest and social reformer F. D. Maurice, who was a family friend. She began her work on behalf of London's