Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley was an Anglican priest, poet, local politician and conservationist. He became nationally and internationally known as one of the three founders of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty in the 1890s.
Hardwicke Rawnsley
Parish church at Shiplake. Rawnsley was born in the rectory.
Octavia Hill (top) and Emma Cons
St Margaret, Low Wray, where Rawnsley was vicar from 1877 to 1883
Octavia Hill was an English social reformer, whose main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Born into a family of radical thinkers and reformers with a strong commitment to alleviating poverty, she herself grew up in straitened circumstances owing to the financial failure of her father's businesses. Home educated by her mother, she worked from the age of 14 for the welfare of working people.
Octavia Hill by John Singer Sargent, 1898
A Marylebone slum in the nineteenth century
Wicken Fen acquired by the National Trust in 1899
Hampstead Heath – saved by Octavia Hill and others