Hardwicke Rawnsley he wrote to "The Times" protesting against Britain's high tax on the importation of French wine, which he saw as unfair and as contributing to rural poverty in France. To protect the countryside from damaging development, Rawnsley, building on an idea propounded by Ruskin, conceived of a National Trust that could buy and preserve places of natural beauty and historic interest for the nation. The Trust became a reality in 1895; its co-founders were Rawnsley, Octavia Hill and Sir Robert Hunter. Until his death, Rawnsley worked as Honorary Secretary to the Trust. He was responsible for the campaign to raise
The Tale of Peter Rabbit explains, a Potter family friend and sometime poet, Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, set Potter's tale into "rather dreadful didactic verse and submitted it, along with Potter's illustrations and half her revised manuscript, to Frederick Warne & Co.," who had been among the original rejecters. Warne editors declined Rawnsley's version "but asked to see the complete Potter manuscript" – their interest stimulated by the opportunity "The Tale of Peter Rabbit" offered the publisher to compete with the success of Helen Bannerman's wildly popular "Little Black Sambo" and other small-format children's books then on the market. When Warne inquired about the lack of