Hardwicke Rawnsley money to buy Brandlehow Wood, the National Trust's first purchase in the Lake District. In 1898, Rawnsley was offered the bishopric of Madagascar, but declined it, feeling himself committed to his conservation work in the Lake District and, by then, in many other parts of the British countryside. In 1912 he was appointed to the largely honorary position of chaplain to the King, and he held the post of chaplain to the Border Regiment of the Territorial Force, with the rank of colonel. Rawnsley published more than forty books, mostly non-fiction, some on religious subjects, many with a Lake District
Charity Organization Society similar to those in late-20th-century public welfare programs, despite the fact that COS only granted relief only to recipients it deemed worthy and improvable. Furthermore, journals kept by the COS case workers and "friendly visitors" indicate that they were not on friendly terms with the relief recipients but described them in disparaging terms and interacted with them in an intrusive and presumptuous way. The COS was resented by the poor for its harshness, and its acronym was rendered by critics as "Cringe or Starve". In Britain, the Charity Organisation Society led by Helen Bosanquet and Octavia Hill was founded in