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) Hunter's other most important contribution, in Chubb's view, was the negotiation of the terms for acquiring the National Telephone Company's system, which saved another £8.5m. In 1883 Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley was engaged in a campaign to stop the construction of railways from quarries in the fells overlooking Buttermere, in the English Lake District, with damaging effect on the unspoilt scenery. He secured the support of John Ruskin, Octavia Hill and Hunter, and was successful in stopping the development. Both Hunter and Rawnsley, building on an idea put forward by Ruskin, advocated a trust that could buy and preserve places of