Hardwicke Rawnsley not lived and worked." Hardwicke Rawnsley Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley (29 September 1851 – 28 May 1920) was a Church of England clergyman, poet, hymn writer, local politician, and conservationist. He was also one of the founders of the National Trust. Living in the English Lake District for more than thirty years, he worked for the protection of the countryside and secured the support of people of influence for his campaigns. Rawnsley was born at the rectory, Shiplake, Oxfordshire, England, the fourth of ten children of the Rev Robert Drummond Burrell Rawnsley (1817–1882) and his wife, Catherine Ann, "née" Franklin
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,