Beatrix Potter Castle near Lake Windermere. Here Beatrix met Hardwicke Rawnsley, vicar of Wray and later the founding secretary of the National Trust, whose interest in the countryside and country life inspired the same in Beatrix and who was to have a lasting impact on her life. At about the age of 14, Beatrix began to keep a diary. It was written in a code of her own devising which was a simple letter for letter substitution. Her "Journal" was important to the development of her creativity, serving as both sketchbook and literary experiment: in tiny handwriting she reported on society, recorded
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