Hardwicke Rawnsley who had been his secretary and was also an author. She completed his biography, published by Maclehose, Jackson & Co in 1923. Rawnsley died at his home in Grasmere and is buried in the churchyard of his former parish, St. Kentigern's, Crosthwaite. He bequeathed Allan Bank to the National Trust, with Eleanor living there until her death in 1959. In its obituary notice, "The Times" said of him, "It is no exaggeration to say – and it is much to say of anyone – that England would be a much duller and less healthy and happy country if he had
Hardwicke Rawnsley to protect the countryside. In 1883, having secured the support of Robert Hunter, solicitor to the Commons Preservation Society, the social reformer Octavia Hill, and John Ruskin, under whose influence Rawnsley had come while at Oxford, Rawnsley successfully led a campaign to prevent the construction of railways to carry slate from the quarries above Buttermere, which would have ruined the unspoilt valleys of Newlands and Ennerdale. This success led to the formation of the Lake District Defence Society (later to become The Friends of the Lake District). Besides Rawnsley, members included Robert Browning, the Duke of Westminster, Ruskin, and Alfred,