A Coach-Drive at the Lakes (Keswick, 1890)

First published as three separate articles in 1888 in the October, November and December editions of Cornhill Magazine. For the book publication, Rawnsley added a short description of objects of interest in Keswick and its neighbourhood, and a note to tourists.

Contents

From Windermere to Rydal Water (pp. 1-28)

From Rydal to Thirlmere (pp. 29-54)

From Thirlmere to Keswick (pp. 55-94)

 

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Potter and Rawnsley - a Nation's Heritage

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting;
And cometh from afar;
Not in entire forgetfulness;
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

Those lines are of course from Intimations of Immortality, by William Wordsworth, the Lake poet most revered, and most frequently quoted by Hardwicke Rawnsley.  Wordsworth was the first tenant of Allan Bank, for three years from 1808, when he moved here from Dove Cottage, which was too small for his growing family.

A Nation's Heritage  -  the title of Hardwicke Rawnsley's last book, published in 1920, just before his death is dedicated, “To the Memory of the First Duke of Westminster, of Miss Octavia Hill, and of Sir Robert Hunter, without whose help the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest and Natural Beauty would not easily have come into being.” 

I would like to begin this talk with brief biographical sketches of our subjects, Beatrix Potter, whose 150^th birthday is being celebrated this year, and Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley.  Rawnsley's name is probably less familiar than that of Beatrix Potter, outside the Lake District at least, although his life's work is commemorated in the National Trust which with Octavia Hill and Robert Hunter he founded in 1895 and in which he was a prime mover, as Honorary Secretary, for the remainder of his life. 

I will include some brief readings from their respective writings, and I have assembled some published and unpublished images to share with you, and finally, I would like to offer some tentative and purely personal reflections on these two extraordinary characters, and their symbiotic relationship.

***

The Prefatory Note to Hardwicke Rawnsley's, ‘A Nation's Heritage' is dated June 1918, from Allan Bank, Grasmere:

“This record of a summer tour in our National Trust possessions in the West of England has been made in the hope that it may interest and be of use to future visitors, and that it may serve to stimulate lovers of their country to acquire in future years, for the lasting benefit of the nation, other such delightful sites and scenes...”

Intended to be in the nature of a 'Rough Guide' for tourists, what was to be Hardwicke's last book, was dictated to his long-suffering second wife Eleanor Simpson, on their honeymoon.  A friend of many years' standing, from 1905 Eleanor had been the author of the traditional Grasmere dialect plays.  Hardwicke, unable to live without the support of his wife who had died in 1916, had caused a minor scandal by marrying Eleanor in what was considered  indecent haste, only 18 months after his first wife's death. 

In the back of the volume is bound a perforated information sheet about the National Trust for Places of  Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, with an application form to become a subscriber for a minimum of 10 shillings per annum.

During the whole of 2016 the 150^th anniversary of the birth of Beatrix Potter has been celebrated here at Allan Bank, which, as I already mentioned, was briefly the home of William Wordsworth, and at the end of his life, of my great-grandfather Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley and Eleanor, his second wife.

Obviously I never knew my great-grandfather as he died in 1920 at the age of only 69, but I have a vague recollection of Eleanor, who lived on here as a widow until her own death nearly 40 years later.  As a child of perhaps nine or ten years old I was, with my younger sister Jane, invited to stay at Allan Bank for a few days.  I am sure 'Aunt' Eleanor, as we were instructed to call her, was very kind, but I remember finding her a terrifying old lady, who to us appeared to be still living in the Victorian age - prayers were said in the dining room before breakfast with her staff - a housekeeper I imagine, and what seemed to us a very aged butler, whom I remember watching, fascinated, as he polished the steel knives in a special machine in his pantry. 

Beatrix Potter died in December 1943, so obviously I have no recollection of the occasion, as I must have been a very small baby at the time, but I am told that I was brought to meet Beatrix at Castle Cottage, not long before her death, no doubt during a family visit to Eleanor at Allan Bank, though goodness knows how my parents managed to get the petrol for the journey!

While we are still at Allan Bank, it seems appropriate to read you part of Hardwicke Rawnsley's chapter on the Grasmere Sports, from Life and Nature at the English Lakes, together with a brief extract from Beatrix Potter's diary on the same subject:

“The Grasmere Sports are to the dalesmen of Westmorland and Cumberland what the gathering for the Highland games is to men across the Border....  The Grasmere wrestling-ring has grown steadily in favour, both with wrestlers and with the public.  We remember the time when chairs and forms were brought out of the nearest cottages to the field, for the few ladies and gentlemen to sit and see the sport.  Now we have a high-banked gallery of three tiers for the peasants, round a ring an eighth of a mile in circumference, and carriages and coaches in quadruple ranks and behind this, a grand stand, a band stand, and all the rest of it.

Everybody goes to “Girsmer” on Sports' Day; and the fact that everybody has to take some trouble in the going - for Grasmere is eight miles from the nearest railway station - is one of the factors in the success of the games....  They have come, some of them, twenty miles on foot, they have paid their shilling admission to the field, and they intend to have their shilling's worth undisturbed. 

Hardwicke gives a graphic description of the journey by carriage from Keswick, not failing to extol the beauty of the scenery passed on the way, and arriving at Grasmere, notes:

 The eye goes away to the north by the rising ground of Allan Bank.  Shade of Wordsworth, here you haunt us all the day!  For you, great yeoman bard, you too were fond of the sports...”

He goes on to describe the high jump, the wrestling, which is what most of the spectators have come to see, and the drag-hunt, and the proceedings end with,

 the 'Committee-man (presumably Hardwicke himself) with the Champion-belt shining over his arm, accompanied by Lord and Lady Muncaster and the Secretary,... walk out into the open.  The champion,... and the winner,... together with the umpires stand stock-still in a row...  A photographer is heard to say, “Quite quiet please!” and the Grasmere Sports are put on record by sun-and-silver-salt for the Jubilee year, 1887.

 Among the gentry who attended the Grasmere Sports in their carriage a couple of years earlier had been the Potter family.  Beatrix recorded the occasion:

“Thursday August 22^nd - Grasmere Sports, marred by bad accident at Waterhead which, however, we did not know of till afterwards.  Clouds of dust; threatening thunder; but no rain.  We went late and had difficulty in finding friends among the crowd of carriages... 

Evidently they missed the wrestling and the high-jump and only arrived in time for the drag-hunt, since Beatrix goes on,

About nineteen dogs were thrown off, but two young hounds turned back at once, puzzling about the meadow.  The spectators on the tarred wall received them with execrations and shouts of, 'any price agin yon doug!'  Rattler won, a lean, black-and-white hound from Ambleside... Rattler's victory appeared popular; Mr. Wilkinson danced on the box, slapping his thigh, and greeted the owner with a flourish and a wink as we passed him at Rydal leading home his two hounds.  Indeed Mr. Wilkinson raced so alarmingly in his own account with a wagonette that we began to wonder whether he was, to quote aunt Booth's expressive phrase, 'boozy'.  The lower orders were so extensively, but the weather was some excuse...

Beatrix Potter was born in London in 1866, the only daughter of Rupert Potter, a wealthy north country Unitarian barrister.  Her upbringing was like that of any other child of a well-to-do middle-class Victorian family - strict perhaps, but no more strict than was customary at the time. 

Here is Beatrix, aged 15, photographed by her father, who was a first-rate amateur photographer.

Beatrix Potter's fame, as writer and illustrator of timeless children's stories, grows exponentially with each year that passes - she is a phenomenon whose popularity has been a fruitful field for research by sociologists and psychologists, who seek in vain to discover the reason for her popularity.  Her work seems to touch a fundamental chord in all of us, regardless of colour, class, race or creed.  Biographies of Beatrix Potter have been published by Leslie Linder and Judy Taylor, her letters have been collected, her journals, written in code, deciphered and published, her connections with Lakeland beautifully photographed and made available as coffee-table books, and so on.  Her cottage, Hill Top at Sawrey, kept as she left it by the National Trust, according to her instructions, is overrun by visitors, which must provide a considerable headache for the Trust, who have to struggle to reconcile the commitment to provide access, while at the same time preserving this microcosm of her life and writings. 

The Beatrix Potter industry flourishes worldwide and shows no sign of slowing down.  This would have been no surprise to her; whose genteel upbringing most certainly did not inhibit her or prevent her from becoming a shrewd business-woman, well able to strike a bargain and to see the marketability of her work.  As she herself remarked, misquoting Congreve, “Genius, like Murder, will out”.

By contrast, what do we know of Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley? 

He was man of acute observation of nature and sensitivity to the changing weather patterns in the Lakes, a prolific minor poet, biographer, author of ten books promoting the Lake District,  pamphleteer,  indefatigable campaigner for a multiplicity of causes, Founder of the Lake District Defence Society; the National Trust, the Keswick School of Industrial Arts, several Lakeland schools, organiser of bonfires nationwide for Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee  and for the coronation of Edward VII, County Councillor, restorer of St. Kentigern's Church, Crosthwaite, erector and restorer of monuments,  parish priest, Canon of Carlisle Cathedral and honorary Chaplain to the King, as well as a member of countless committees, and so on and so on.

It is hardly surprising that Hardwicke died, burned out, before he reached the age of 70. 

And yet he remains a shadowy figure of whose personal life very little is known.  No diaries, although he certainly kept a diary as it is referred to in his writings, very few letters, although he was a voluminous correspondent, and none of the notes and reminiscences supplied to Eleanor Rawnsley at the time she wrote her appreciation of his life have survived, and are now passed into oblivion.  For such a public man, his personality remains a frustrating enigma.  Through his works only do we know him.

Someone, somewhere, must have had a big bonfire...

On considered reflection however I think that the character and personality of Hardwicke's grandson, my father Conrad Rawnsley may give us some clues.  Like Hardwicke he was impetuous;  a tireless defender of what he saw as right and just causes, impatient with fools or those he considered fools, a man with a wide-ranging knowledge and appreciation of poetry and music, a sensitivity to landscape and to beauty, an accomplished draughtsman, a writer of 'occasional' verses...  A man however with an unjustified inferiority complex, a quarterdeck voice and a quick temper who therefore made had many friends and supporters, but also made enemies among those who did not see eye-to-eye with him.

As Appeals Director of the National Trust in the 1960's he was responsible for the launching of the very successful 'Enterprise Neptune' coastline appeal, but in endeavouring to reform the National Trust from within, he was the cause of a major row which resonated through the Press and the corridors of power for months, and which in the end cost him his job, though many of the reforms which he had advocated were subsequently introduced.  Diplomacy was not his strong point, and like Hardwicke it seems, he was not afraid to fire broadsides across the bows of any establishment organisation which he considered to be in error.  Like his grandfather before him, he suffered from uncertain health; and had two nervous breakdowns as a result of stress and overwork.   A larger-than-life character, like Hardwicke, he too could have been apostrophised as, 'the most active volcano in Europe' and 'a peppery old swine'. 

                                                          *****

Hardwicke Drummond and his twin sister Frances Anna were born in 1851, among the ten children of the Revd. Drummond Rawnsley, vicar of Shiplake-on-Thames in Oxfordshire.  William Wordsworth, who was to become Hardwicke's great hero, and who influenced most profoundly his whole life and work, had died only the previous year.

Hardwicke was educated at Uppingham, where he was among the earliest pupils of Edward Thring, the enlightened headmaster who was also his Godfather.  Thring it was who awoke his interest in poetry, in Wordsworth and in the Lake poets in particular.  It was he too who first introduced him, on holiday, to the Lake District, which later became for Hardwicke the spiritual home which it has been for countless others before and since. 

After Uppingham he went up to Balliol, where it cannot be said that he distinguished himself academically, but where he made the most of all the sporting opportunities available, as accomplished as an oarsman and in athletics.  Here we see him, looking somewhat louche in a floppy hat, second from the left in the back row of the Balliol Cricket Eleven.  (I can only count ten of them, so I presume the photographer was the eleventh!)

At Balliol Hardwicke came under the influence of John Ruskin, Slade Professor of Fine Art at the time, who was to become a lifelong friend and mentor.  Perhaps Ruskin was the final piece slotted into the jigsaw which became the template for Rawnsley's life, and which was through him to preserve from destruction great swathes of the English landscape forever.

After university Hardwicke undertook strenuous mission work as a lay chaplain in Seven Dials, in the course of which Ruskin introduced him to Octavia Hill, already an active social reformer.  Following a nervous breakdown caused by overwork, Hardwicke came to the Lake District to recuperate, staying with his cousins at Wray Castle.   Here he was happy to discover in the grounds a tree, which had been planted by William Wordsworth.  He dashed off a sonnet:

Live they, who love God well enough to own
That not unbidden falls a single leaf;
That every grain is counted in the sheaf;
And told each atom whirling in the stone; -
That no bird flies, no floweret blooms, alone?
Strong in obedience to a high belief
Their hearts help Heaven; to such is Nature chief;
On earth to these God makes his angels known:
Grow slowlier old; the hand that planted thee,
The heart that knew thy secret well, is dust;
Unto thy veins he did his life entrust;
And thou wilt honour him, Immortal Tree!
These rocks shall give all tribute thou canst crave;
For unto them his song a lasting glory gave.

Hardwicke also stayed with Edward Thring here at Grasmere, and at the Croft, Ambleside with the Fletchers, wealthy industrialists from the north of England, to whom he was introduced by Octavia Hill. 

I think we could date from this time the real blossoming of his love affair with the Lake Country, where he tramped the fells in company with the Fletchers' daughter Edith, and her sister. 

Once recovered, Hardwicke was sent as Chaplain to the Clifton College Mission service of St. Agnes in Bristol, where his unconventional methods of dealing with young miscreants raised some eyebrows.  Hardwicke described the scene on a Sunday evening:

“On arriving there was a free fight going outside the public house or the door of the mission room among 'Mr. Rawnsley's boys' as they were dubbed.  Then, calling upon them to be gentlemen and let the women go upstairs first, there was a pause; and up bundled the women and girls who dared face the meeting.  Then to seats reserved in front close by me 'the lambs' came up, and just as prayer began a fusillade of stones from outside would rattle all along the wooden walls of our conventicle, while the noise of horses in the stable below added to the din.  In the midst of prayer the door would be knocked at and the porter often be overpowered by a strong rush, and fighting would go on below stairs till I appeared - passed up one or two and sent off the others.  All would go well till, in the middle of the hymn, perhaps, catcalls and whistles sounded outside; and one of my 'lambs' would nudge his fellow and walk out - courteously remarking; 'sorry we've got an engagement with a pal, good night.'  Often a man, disguising the fact that he was in liquor, would be in the midst of the mission congregation, and I had to rise from my knees and help to tumble him out; and come back and go on with the prayers as if nothing had happened.  It is hard work - very - to fight a man downstairs, and come up and try to be in breath as you go on with sermon or prayer.”

It seems that he eventually got the sack, because we next meet him back in the Lake District.

Hardwicke was ordained priest at Carlisle Cathedral in 1877.  His cousin, Edward Preston Rawnsley who had inherited Wray Castle on the death of his uncle a few years earlier, offered him the living of Wray-on-Windermere.  The following year he married Edith Fletcher, the elder daughter of the Fletchers at Croft, and together they moved into the vicarage at Wray.  

Their only child, Noel Hardwicke was born at Wray in 1880, and it is here that our story begins.

In July 1882 Rupert Potter brought his family to Wray Castle for the summer holidays. 

Beatrix, now aged 15, recorded the event in her journal: 

“Friday; July 21^st - Wray Castle.  This house was built by Mr. Dawson, doctor, in 1845,with his wife's money.  Her name was Margaret Preston. She was a Liverpool lady.  Her father Robert Preston made gin; that was where the money came from.

“They say it took £60,000 to build it (probably including furniture).   It took seven years to finish.  The stone was brought across the lake.  One old horse dragged it all up to the house on a kind of tram way.  The architect Mr. Lightfoot killed himself with drinking before the house was finished...

“Mr. Dawson died in 1875, aged 96.  He used to live in the cottage, but one day a storm blew off a slate and he vowed he would build a house that could stand the weather.  [After the death of his wife] he lived there alone till his death, living in the little room papa photographs in.  He kept three servants.  The rest of the house was shut up.”

The incumbent of the parish would ,as a matter of course, call upon the wealthy summer tenants of Wray Castle and thus it was that Hardwicke, now aged 30, met the 16-year old Beatrix,  the meeting which was to have such a profound influence on the future of the Lake District in later years.

Even at the age of 16 Beatrix was already a talented artist.  With her well-developed sense of observation she made the most of this entirely new area of the country, avidly collecting flowers and animals with her younger brother Bertram, to draw and paint.  It seems however that it was only the following year, when the family took a house in Scotland for the summer, that she started to develop the interest in mycology which was to become a passion, and of which in different circumstances she might have made a profession.

Rupert Potter and Hardwicke, in spite of the difference in age, Rupert at this time being in his 51^st year,  had many interests in common and immediately struck up a friendship which was to last until Potter's death in 1914.  They kept up a regular correspondence when the Potters were not resident in the Lakes.  

Not the least of their shared interests was photography, of which Rupert Potter was a keen amateur exponent, and in no time he persuaded Hardwicke to sit for him, the first of many occasions on which he was to do so. 

Hardwicke, almost by accident it seems, quickly became involved in conservation issues.   Objections to various plans to build railways in the Lake District had been made ever since the 1840s, when Wordsworth himself had been among the first of those who had opposed them.  These objections had not however made national news, and it was the impetuous young vicar of Wray-on-Windermere who in 1883 was responsible for making the menace posed by the indiscriminate construction of railways, for tourism as well as for industrial purposes, a national issue.    As Graham Murphy in Founders of the National Trust records, by spearheading the successful prevention of the construction of a line for transporting slate down the Vale of Newlands, so beloved of Wordsworth, Hardwicke inadvertently found himself at the forefront of opposition to any scheme which threatened to spoil the region's unique landscape.

A rallying call appeared in the correspondence columns of The Standard:

Sir

The public has not been warned a moment too soon, and owes a debt of gratitude to Mr. Greenall, Lingholme, Keswick for having sounded the alarm.    The question that the Select Committee of the House of Commons will have to decide is one of great interest; not only to us who are dwellers at the Lakes; but to all the thousands who crowd hither annually from stifling city and railway-haunted district to find peace and freedom from the bustle of their time.  And the question simply stated is this - Are the proprietors who work a certain slate quarry up in Honister to be allowed to damage irretrievably the health, rest and pleasure ground of the whole of their fellow countrymen who come there for needed quiet and rest, in order that they - the owners - may put a few more shillings a truckload into their private pockets?  ... Let the slate train once roar along the western side of Derwentwater; let it once cross the lovely vale of Newlands, and Keswick as the resort of weary men in search of rest will cease to be....

  Your obedient servant, H.D. Rawnsley

Sir Robert Hunter, later to be a co-founder with Hardwicke Rawnsley and Octavia Hill of the National Trust, who had the previous year resigned as Solicitor to the Commons Preservation Society, lent his support to the creation of the Borrowdale and Derwentwater Defence Fund, and John Ruskin among other influential people, was persuaded to add his name to a petition.  No doubt Hardwicke will have enlisted the support of Rupert Potter as well.

Schemes for further railways in Ennerdale and elsewhere in the Lake District followed, and willy-nilly Hardwicke found himself catapulted into prominence as the catalyst for the defence of the amenities of Lakeland.  As a delighted supporter wrote; The victory is wholly due to your enthusiasm and energy - none of us would have done anything but for you”.  

The future course of Hardwicke Rawnsley's life was thus determined. 

                                                          ******

The upshot of all this brouhaha was the foundation of the Lake District Defence Society, a pressure group which eventually was to wither only with the foundation of the National Trust in 1895.

Among the many early campaigns in which Hardwicke gained fame or notoriety, depending upon whose side you were on, was the battle to reopen a disputed footpath on Latrigg in 1895, which was eventually won, but Hardwicke did not always win his battles, and that for the preservation of the beautiful reed-fringed Thirlmere, which Manchester Corporation wished to convert into a reservoir to supply the fast-growing city, was eventually lost Hardwicke having recognised the overriding necessity, and in 1878 the necessary Bill went before Parliament.  He continued however to keep a watching brief and was quick to intervene if necessary to prevent unnecessary vandalism by the Corporation.

In 1883 Hardwicke was offered the living of Crosthwaite, Keswick where he, Edith and Noel took up residence in the substantial Vicarage which was to be their home for more than thirty years.

On their next summer visit to the Lake District in 1885, when the Potters rented Lingholme for the first time, Rupert photographed Beatrix, Hardwicke and Noel in the garden.

The Rawnsley's received many distinguished visitors at Crosthwaite, among others, the Master of Balliol, Professor Caird and his wife, a visit duly recorded by Rupert Potter.

Although from a different confession, being a staunch Unitarian, Rupert Potter was evidently a person with whom Hardwicke could let off steam and with whom he could discuss pastoral and theological problems.

 Hardwicke wrote on 7^th November 1897

Dear Mr. Potter

At last I breathe freely and can take a few minutes to tell you how great a pleasure your photographs have given to all the School Masters and Mistresses and to the servants here, who desire me to give you their warmest thanks.

... We must also be thanking you for the excellent photograph of the Master of Balliol and myself in front of the Vicarage.  What a funny little trio we seem to make, Mr. Caird and myself and Mme like a sort of (indecipherable) fairy godmother...

So glad you cared for our worship.  It is hearty and there is no nonsense.  And there is a kind of ... simplicity about it which I expect is striking to one who does not often go churchward; but use makes us sadly too familiar with it all.  I sometimes wish I was a Dissenter who only came now and again.  I feel it would do me much more good.

Yrs truly, HDR

The following year, on 27^th March 1898, Hardwicke wrote again from Crosthwaite Vicarage:

Dear Mr Potter

I am more pleased than words can say on receipt of this kind letter.  It is one of the very few letters that has encouraged me to persevere as a parson.  I have striven to say what I have to say in lines that cloud my [real] principles & the spirit of Christ& this is a kind of parody that in consequence I have not driven men who are thinkers, like yourself, away from Church disgusted & irritated.

Thank you too very much for your testimony to the simplicity & restfulness of our old fashioned service of praise at Crosthwaite.  It is worth many £4 notes to have them.[But last] thank you for your considerable (illegible) hospitality.

Yours truly.

HD Rawnsley

Of course I agree with you that all those ecclesiastics are too irksome...  we see but in a glass darkly. It’s no use dogmatising. I can’t do it, but I always thank your Church for sticking by God as Father.

In the meantime, Beatrix Potter's life continued its even way, at Bolton Gardens in London during the winter, with summers in Scotland, the West Country and the Lake District at Lingholme.

In September 1893 Beatrice wrote  from Dunkeld to Noel Moore, the son of her old governess, what has since become, as Judy Taylor remarks, “one of the most famous letters ever written - a story about four little rabbits, Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter..” -   A story which eventually of course became the basis for the first of her 'little books,' the Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Three years earlier, encouraged by her uncle, Sir Henry Roscoe, Beatrix, now aged 24, had offered some of her drawings for sale.  These were bought by the publishers, Hildesheimer and Faulkner and used for Christmas and New Year cards. 

Beatrix's professional career had begun. 

Encouraged by this success she submitted some of her work to various publishers, including Frederick Warne, already well-known publishers of children's books.  At this point she already demonstrates that she would become a shrewd business-woman, indicating her dissatisfaction with the price offered by Nisters, a German firm of fine-art printers for a set of nine pen-and-ink drawings and sticking out for the price she had asked for of 22/6d for the set.

In 1896 the Potters spent the summer at Lakefield on the edge of the village of Sawrey, which Beatrix confided to her diary was “as nearly perfect a little place as I have ever lived in.”  Sawrey was to become her spiritual home, and nine years later, with the financial independence which came with royalties received for her first books, she was to buy Hill Top Farm, where the following year she ventured into breeding those plucky natives of Lakeland, the Herdwick sheep, a subject on which she became a considerable expert.  Some years later Hardwicke had evidently also fallen under their spell as in By Fell and Dale, published in 1911, he gives a knowledgeable account of their particularities.

Emboldened by her success in selling some of her drawings, Beatrix borrowed back the original picture letter she had sent to Noel Moore, copied the black and white drawings and decided to create from it a little book for children which she entitled The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Mr. McGregor's Garden. For assistance in finding a publisher she turned to Hardwicke Rawnsley, by now an old friend of the family, and already a well-established published author.  He of course willingly offered to use his influence with the publishing world.

 As Judy Taylor notes, it was a frustrating time, with the book being repeatedly turned away, each potential publisher wanting something larger and with illustrations in colour, and as Beatrix observed in a letter to Marjory, Noel Moore's sister, requesting the loan of the letters for a little longer because she wanted to make a list of them,

“but I don't think they will be made into a book this time because the publisher wants poetry... and he “wants a bigger book than he has got enough money to pay for, and Miss Potter has arguments with him.  I wonder if that book will ever be printed!  I think Miss Potter will go to another publisher soon!  She would rather make 2 or 3 little books costing one shilling each than one big book costing six shillings because she thinks little rabbits cannot afford to spend six shillings on one book and would not buy it.”

By 1901, Beatrix's patience had run out and she decided to publish her rabbit story herself. 

In the meanwhile Hardwicke was continuing his efforts to find a commercial publisher, and since it appeared that a rhyming tale was required he rewrote the text in verse, illustrated with Beatrix's black-and-white line drawings:

There were four little bunnies - no bunnies were sweeter
Mopsy and Cotton-tail, Flopsy and Peter.
They lived in a sand-bank, as here you may see
At the foot of a fir -a magnificent tree.
Now my dears said the old Mrs. Rabbit one day
You may run to the fields or the lane for your play,
But I warn you all four to be sure not to go
To Mr. McGregor's who lives just below;
Your father - and here Mrs. Rabbit shed tears -
“Had an accident once in that Garden my dears,
And his end - “Mummy darling” said Mopsy, “don't cry!” -
“Was this - he was baked in a pie.
I am off to the village and while I am out
Keep clear of his garden and look well about.”

Then she buttoned their capes on, just under the chin,
And bade them remember that mischief was sin
But Peter she knew was a bit of a turk
So she buttoned his cape with an extra big jerk.
So holding them all to be sure to be good
And picking her skirt up as wise rabbits should
To the bakers with 'gamp' and with basket she went
And on buns and brown-bread quite a fortune she spent.

Then Cotton-tail, Mopsy and Flopsy all three
Did just as their mother had bade them you see:
They gathered ripe black-berries all down the lane
And ate them by hundreds without any pain.
But Peter the naughty, I grieve to relate,
To the garden of McGregor went straight,
And squeezed himself bunny-like under the gate.
And first to a bed of young lettuce he ran. 

Then next on the beans a near dinner began.
Tried radishes next, and because he felt ill,
Went next to the parsley, a good rabbit-fill,
When turning the end of a cucumber frame,
Face to face with Grim Mr. McGregor he came.

And so on, in the same vein, ending, once Peter, wet, frightened and dishevelled and minus both his new blue coat with the brass buttons and his shoes, escapes and finds his way home and his put to bed by his mother, ending with the inescapable moral of the story:

Enough now of Peter
but what of the others,
Those good little pattern obedient brothers?
They sat down to tea, too good-mannered to cram
And ate bread and milk and sweet blackberry jam
And thought, as we all think, by far the best way
Is to do what we're told, and our mothers obey.

Meanwhile Frederick Warne had proposed in a letter to Canon Rawnsley that they would be willing to take the prose version, of the Tale, with coloured illustrations, and reduced in length from Beatrix's original. 

Hardwicke passed the letter on to Beatrix, who agreed to their proposals about the payment of royalties.  Warnes evidently intended to carry on the negotiations through Hardwicke, but Beatrix was now gaining confidence in her ability to negotiate her own terms, and in a letter dated December 18 1901 agreeing to Warne's proposals, she wrote:

I do not know if it is necessary to consult Canon Rawnsley; I should think not. Speaking for myself, I consider your terms very liberal as regards royalty, but I do not quite understand about the copyright.   Do you propose that the copyright remains mine; you agreeing to print an edition of 5,000, and having - as part of the agreement - the option of printing more editions if required?  I must apologise for not understanding; but I would like to be clear about it.  For instance who would the copyright belong to in the event of your not wishing to print a second edition?  I am sure no one is likely to offer me better terms than 3d apiece, and I am aware that these little books don't last long, even if they are a success, but I would like to know what I am agreeing to.

An extended correspondence with Warnes ensued, on the illustrations, the quality of the printing blocks, and other technical details, Beatrix demonstrating already the business acumen which was to stand her in good stead in later life, and certainly no longer requiring the advice and assistance of her friend and mentor Canon Rawnsley!

Here is more or less the same passage from the Tale of Peter Rabbit as finally published, in the shortened version, by Frederick Warne, in Beatrix's own words, The simplicity of the text is illuminated of course by the wonderful coloured illustrations which Warne's had specified. You will notice that in the process of abbreviation Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-Tail have lost their capes and only Peter has retained his blue jacket with the brass buttons.

“Once upon a time there were four little Rabbits; and their names were - Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-Tail and Peter.  They lived with their Mother in a sand-bank, underneath the root of a very big fir-tree. 'Now; my dears,' said old Mrs. Rabbit one morning, 'you may go into the fields or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden:  your Father had an accident there: he was put in a pie by Mrs. McGregor.'

Now run along; and don't get into mischief.  I am going out.'  Then old Mrs. Rabbit took a basket and her umbrella; and went through the wood to the baker's.  She bought a loaf of brown bread and five currant buns.  Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail, who were good little bunnies, went down the lane to gather blackberries; But Peter, who was very naughty, ran straight away to Mr. McGregor's garden, and squeezed under the gate!

First he ate some lettuces and some French beans, and then he ate some radishes; And then, feeling rather sick, he went to look for some parsley.  But round the end of a cucumber frame, whom should he meet but Mr. McGregor!”

“Peter never stopped running or looked behind him till he got home to the big fir-tree.  He was so tired that he flopped down upon the nice soft sand on the floor of the rabbit-hole and shut his eyes.  His mother was busy cooking; she wondered what he had done with his clothes.  It was the second little jacket and pair of shoes that Peter had lost in a fortnight!

I am sorry to say that Peter was not very well during the evening.  His mother put him to bed, and made some camomile tea and she gave a dose of it to Peter!  'One table-spoonful to be taken at bed-time.'   But Flopsy, Mopsy, and Cotton-tail had bread and milk and blackberries for supper.”

In the published version the inevitable moral of the tale is left to the imagination of the reader to deduce...

Warne's choice of the prose version of the Tale was a momentous decision which, though of course they could not have foreseen it at the time, would eventually bring Beatrix fame and fortune, not just through the 'Little Books' but also through the various other brand-marketing sidelines which she later negotiated and licensed.  Indirectly too, through her association with Hardwicke and their joint interest in the conservation of the Lake District, Beatrix was instrumental in saving vast tracts of this wonderful country from development and commercial exploitation, through her gifts and bequests to the National Trust.

As the landscape photographer Joe Cornish, who has done so much in illustrating the work of the National Trust, and who took the photographs for Graham Murphy's Founders of the National Trust, remarked to me,

“Beatrix Potter’s legacy in the Lakes to the National Trust marks her out as probably the greatest single contributor to the conservation and landscape movement in the history of these islands” 

Few would disagree I think.

Beatrix Potter's great flowering period took place in the relatively short space of 17 years between 1901 when The Tale of Peter Rabbit was published, and 1918 with the publication of The Tale of Johnny Townmouse.  Following the sudden death of her fiancée Norman Warne, of the publishing firm which took on her books, she consoled herself with writing, and converting into book form the picture story-letters she had sent to the children of Annie Moore.

Apart from letters to the Press, pamphlets, sermons and sonnets, Hardwicke's publishing career, had begun in 1877 with a Book of Bristol Sonnets, followed by Sonnets at the English Lakes in 1881, Sonnets Round the Coast in 1887, and a biography of Edward Thring as Teacher and Poet in 1889.  Apart from his Literary Associations of the English Lakes which came out in 1894, when the nascent National Trust was already in process of creation, Hardwicke's main oeuvre, the nine further titles about the English Lakes were all published at regular intervals during a period of 15 years, between 1901 with Ruskin and the English Lakes and 1916 when his last Lake District volume, Past and Present at the English Lakes, a collection of essays concerned mainly with historical matters, including an account of the German miners of Keswick, appeared.  In almost all these volumes, which though of varying quality from the literary point of view are all of great interest and contain some excellent lyrical writing, Hardwicke takes every opportunity to give the National Trust a 'plug'. 

In 1906 Beatrix Potter bought Hill Top Farm at Sawrey.  This image of her, with her father and Hardwicke was taken by Rupert Potter at Lingholme, which the Potters had rented for the summer.

In Chapters at the English Lakes, published in 1913, Hardwicke recounts the story of the protracted 'Battle of Portinscale Bridge' which raged for several years, involving Hardwicke in several visits to London to enlist support, letters to The Times, Petitions, a Public Enquiry, the mobilisation of the local landowners and the great-and-good, not the least of whom was Sir Robert Hunter a fellow founder of the National Trust.  Fortuitously one of the visitors to Crosthwaite Vicarage in the summer of 1906 had been the structural engineer Francis Fox, currently engaged in work to stabilise and reinforce the stonework of Winchester Cathedral using the grouting process, by means of which liquid Portland cement was pumped into all the crevices of the ancient stonework.  Once hardened, as Fox explained, “the masonry becomes monolithic, and is rendered perfectly safe for all reasonable requirements for hundreds of years”.  Armed with this information Hardwicke proceeded to draw up the battle lines:  As he records,

“The controversy which raged for two years over the preservation of the picturesque old Portinscale Bridge, and which has at last been determined in favour of its retention, will die down and be forgotten, but the facts ought to be put upon record that other Highway Committees of County Councils should know in how inexpensive a manner old work can, without change in appearance, permanently be preserved so as to carry all traffic, and that the public may be encouraged throughout the land to resist the clamour; in the name of what is called commercial progress and up-to-date highways, to the complete destruction of some of the most beautiful reminiscences of an olden time and some of the most valuable adjuncts to natural scenery....

“Time alone will show whether wiser counsels may prevail in future and whether, no matter what the bridge is... it shall be looked upon as part of the duty of a highway authority to consider not only the actual needs of swifter traffic, but also the amenity of the scenery to which each bridge is an adjunct...  One of the features of the Lake District is the beauty of the old bridges that were built of local stone.  Many of them were originally so built merely for the packhorse traffic, and were spliced or added to suit the mail coach traffic of a later day.  They generally retained the hump-backed arch, which in a country whose becks and rivers were subject to flood was considered wise.  Portinscale Bridge was no exception to this rule.”

Hardwicke goes on to give a very full account of the battle, of which he was evidently the Commander in Chief, and thoroughly in his element.  The eventual outcome of was that the bridge was in due course, in the teeth of opposition, duly grouted and saved for posterity.

As Eleanor Rawnsley records,

“It was with characteristic enjoyment that Hardwicke would tell of meeting, shortly after the fight was won, with a stranger, evidently from the camp of the opposition, who, when they fell to talking of the battle for the bridge; remarked, “If it had not been for that devil Rawnsley, we should have won the case”.”

Parodying Macaulay's Lay of Horatius a friend of Hardwicke sent him this Valentine message:

 “Valentine Day A.D. 2000

How Hardy Rawnsley held the Bridge.

And still the name sounds stirring
Unto the Crosthwaite men
As ruthless vandals try to spoil
the glories of the glen;
And wives still pray to Juno
For sons with hearts as bold
As his who held the Bridge so well
In the brave days of old.

With weeping and with laughter
Still is the story told
How hardy Rawnsley held the bridge
In the brave days of old.”

Sad to relate, the bridge in the end did not survive until the year 2000, but was irreparably damaged by severe flooding in the late 1950's, and the A66 now crosses the river Derwent by one of the featureless 'ferro-concrete' bridges which Hardwicke had so deplored.

A further successful campaign in which Rawnsley was a prime mover was for access to the shores of Windermere, and in Chapters at the English Lakes he gives a detailed account of the acquisition by the National Trust of the Roman camp ground at Borrans Field and what had become known as Queen Adelaide's Hill. 

“There is no mere so much frequented by the men of Manchester and North Lancashire as that which in old time it is believed Onundhr, the Viking chieftain, gave his name.   But it is a mere whose foreshores have been in the past fifty years much taken up by private landowners.  There is no water so much visited from which boating and sailing parties have so little chance of landing and enjoying themselves upon the shore.  Thus for example, from Waterhead right down to Bowness, landing is impossible on the western shore without trespass, and from Waterhead to Bowness on the eastern shore there is only one semi-public landing, Low Wood, and one public landing at Miller Ground; it is owed to the courtesy of the owner of the soil at both these places that visitors, having landed; can make their way to the main road...

Virtually, then, once embarked at the northern end of the Lake, visitors and inhabitants alike must return to the public landing-place without the pleasure, which is surely part of a boating excursion; of landing and roaming on the shore.

This was the state of affairs a year ago.  Fortunately for the British public it is no longer the fact.  In the spring of last year, 1912, My brother, Mr. Willingham Rawnsley, driving to Waterhead, noticed that a field in which the Roman fort is situated, was being excavated for the foundations of certain lodging-houses.  It had been known that some ten years before this, Borrans Field had passed into the hands of a well-known local builder.  It was also known that we of the National Trust had approached him at the time, that he had been unwilling to sell, but had offered the land in question to the Ambleside local authority on certain conditions which they did not see their way to accept.

The sight of these trenches for foundation, which it was clear contained certain Roman débris, roused the passer-by to instant exertion.  He went off at once to see Mr. Gordon Wordsworth and the neighbouring proprietor, Mr. Hugh Redmayne, with the result that all three together interviewed the owner, who though not particularly anxious to sell, was nevertheless willing if he could get his price, to part with the twenty acres of land for £4000, and in addition with the consent of his brother who was part-owner, to make a handsome donation of £400 towards the purchase.

A local committee was formed, and the National Trust was approached to assist in the raising of funds.  The Trust, in order not to jeopardise the appeal, postponed another scheme to acquire Adelaide Hill and Miller Ground for the nation.  Once again the great-and-good were mobilised and the funds were quickly raised, “subscriptions coming in” as Hardwicke records,

“Not only from those interested in Roman excavations but from those who knew how imperative it was to safeguard that beautiful pastoral view at the head of the Lake from building operations or from the possibility of a 'hangar' for aeroplanes.”

In 1912 Beatrix Potter, now a successful sheep-farmer at Sawrey, herself had become involved in a campaign, to stop hydroplanes from wrecking the peace of Windermere.  Writing from Hill Top Farm a long letter to Country Life published on 13 January, she describes the pastoral scene, as the horse-ferry, the only connecting link for all road traffic between Kendal and the northern part of Furness which lies between Windermere and the eastern shore of Coniston, plies the lake.

 

“For dwellers beside the road from Hawkshead the ferry is the sole means of access for horsed vehicles on the way to town, to station and to Kendal Market.  The present ferry boat is worked by a small engine and flywheel, along a wire cable.  Tourists on the steamers notice the ramshackle, picturesque boat, heavy laden with the Coniston four-horsed coach and char-à-banc, or with carrier's tilt cart and bustling motor, or homely toppling loads of oak bark and hooper's swills, or droves of sheep and cattle.  Farm-carts go down and across with sacks of wool and bark and faggots and they struggle homewards with loads of coal.  Everyone uses the ferry. 

On calm summer waters no voyage is more cheerful and pleasant than this crossing of Windermere.  Those who live to the west can tell another tale of winter nights, when the ferry cannot cross in the teeth of the wind.  Then the home-coming carriers are storm-stayed at Bowness, and the Crier of Claife calls in vain for the ferryman.  For the most part we accept these interruptions as a dispensation of Providence - and the climate....  

But danger, turmoil and possible pecuniary damage in calm weather at the hand of fellow-man are another matter altogether.  Our peaceful lake is disturbed by the presence of a hydroplane.  We are threatened with the prospect of an aeroplane factory at Cockshott Point, between Bowness Bay and the Ferry Nab, and with the completion of five more machines before next summer.  The existing machine flies up and down in the trough of the hills; it turns at either end of the lake and comes back.  It flies at a comparatively low level; the noise of its propeller resembles millions of blue-bottles, plus a steam threshing engine.  Horses upon land may possibly become accustomed to it, but it is doubtful whether they will ever stand quietly as it swoops over their heads while on the boat.  If they back while on the water there will be an accident...   Surely the proper place for testing hydroplanes is over the sea, rather than over an inland lake?

Another petition was got up, the campaign was successful, and before the year was out the hydroplane vanished from Windermere.

Soon after the unexpected death, in August 1905, of her fiancée of a month, Beatrix Potter, while immersing herself in writing and in the development and marketing of Peter Rabbit, invested some of her earnings, as we have already heard, in Hill Top, a working farm at Sawrey, winning prizes for her Herdwick sheep at agricultural shows.  In December 1913 at the age of 46 she married her solicitor, William Heelis and reinvented herself as Mrs. Heelis, countrywoman and full-time farmer, casting off the chrysalis of Beatrix Potter, although for the next few years she did continue writing, and adapting stories written in earlier years.  Her only completely new publication was the Tale of Johnny Townmouse, published in 1918.

In March 1943 Beatrix was elected President of the Herdwick Sheep Breeders Association, the first woman to receive this honour, but very sadly she died just before Christmas that year, before being able to take up the post.

Reading his Lake District books, it very quickly becomes obvious that Hardwicke came to know the fells at least as well as Wainwright later in the 20^th century, and was anxious to share his knowledge and infectious enthusiasm for their history and topography with the reader, whom he hopes to persuade to follow him as a rambler round the Lake Country.

In my copy of By Fell and Dale, published in 1911, the flyleaf is intriguingly inscribed Harold J. Smith, Allan Bank, July 13, 1918.  This volume contains not only some of his best poetic descriptive writing, of which I would like to quote a short passage in a moment, but also a very knowledgeable Crack about Herdwick Sheep, an interest shared with Beatrix Heelis. 

“Visitors to our Lake Country, as they ramble over the fells, must be constantly struck with the exceeding beauty of the delicate; lithe little sheep; with their shy black faces and their dainty feet; that give life to the mountain side...”

“The most remarkable characteristics of these Herdwick sheep are their homing instinct and their marvellous memories.  Of this latter there are many proofs to hand.  For example; a flock of sheep, driven down a road which was blocked at the time, had to pass through a gate, and so back again through another opening in the wall to the roadway.  This was when they were being driven back to the fells.  They did not pass along that road again for many months.  The road was no longer blocked, and the wall had been built up; but as soon as they came to the place where the wall had been built up, they all topped the wall and insisted on going back again through the gate.  I have myself seen a flock driven along the road, suddenly, when they came to a certain place, spring into the air, and was told that at that particular point in the former year, a pole had been across the road, and the sheep had jumped it when they came to the place.  Though no obstruction now existed, they leapt over an imaginary pole.

“It is worth going with the shepherds; if only to see the work of the dogs.  The dogs know quite well that it is their duty to collect the sheep to certain well-known collecting places, and they do this almost unbidden by their masters.  Away goes the dog and is lost to sight for half an hour or more, and by the time the shepherd has got to a certain point he will find the sheep have been rounded up, and are waiting to be counted.  

In the Prefatory Note to that same volume, By Fell and Dale by way of introduction, Hardwicke says:

It will be seen that many of the walks herein described were taken in the Spring of the year.  This has been done with a purpose.  I have long felt that the outside public do not realise the extreme beauty of the colouring of the Lake District at this season...

Here is a brief example, as mentioned earlier, of Rawnsley's poetic word-painting, used once again to publicise the National Trust:

“It is satisfactory to know that the most beautiful part of Borrowdale is now in the hands of the National Trust; and until that body is dissolved by Act of Parliament (for nothing else can dissolve it) it will remain safe for the enjoyment of the people, unharmed by the speculative builder and free from the restrictions which land preserved for sporting rights must necessarily involve.

There is no month like March for colour at the English Lakes...

Come with me today: we will climb to the King's How, Grange Fell and I will show you some of the beauty of the last possession of the National Trust.  The 'bar' or 'helm' cloud is white above Helvellyn and a strong east wind is blowing.  The droughty roads are white as milk, but the hills all round the Crosthwaite valley are clad in purple and gold, shadows dapple the fells, and the sunshine is glorious upon lake and mountain height.  The heather, just beginning to feel the spring, is changing into brown-madder, which in sunshine, gleams of iris-hue, and the dead 'bent' upon the fells seen through the mist of the vaporous veil that is borne to us on the wings of the east wind from the factory smoke of Lancashire and Yorkshire, glimmers into gold.....

Outcrops of grey rock stand like islands in this flood of colour, and hence, gazing southward, we get what before was impossible, for no one had the right to wander here, the most magnificent view from the middle vale to the far recesses of ancient Borrowdale....

The valley is closed on the right by the moss-agate like slopes of Maiden Mawr, and on the left is guarded by the rocky height which henceforth above this vale of peace will keep in mind the honoured name of Edward the Peacemaker, for it was the summit of that fell which her Royal Highness the Princess Louise purchased for the nation as a memorial of her brother, the late King.

Hardwicke Rawnsley, in despite of his high public profile while living, was in the end, a man of his time.   So, while the man is more or less forgotten outside the Lake Country, Hardwicke Drummond, Canon Rawnsley, through the National Trust of which he was initiator and co-founder, Honorary Secretary and tireless publiciser, from its foundation until the day of his death, Hardwicke lives on, not just as A Nation's Heritage, but equally as a world heritage through the similar organisations which have been founded on that model all over the world.

Following the death of her mother, Beatrix Heelis wrote on Christmas Day 1932 to Eleanor Rawnsley,

Dear Mrs Rawnsley;

Thank you for your kind sympathy.  My mother's long life was a link with times that are passed away though still vivid in our memory - the old leisurely pleasant days of stately carriage horses and of the Keswick coach.  Latterly she has lived so retired that modern changes have not much affected her.  Her chief interests were her canaries; her needlework and her little dog.  She was wonderfully clear in mind; but her organs - except her heart - were wearing out; and I am glad that she is at rest.  I am glad that my parents and I were able to help in the great work that has sprung about miraculously from the small beginnings initiated by Canon Rawnsley.

Yours sincerely, Beatrix Heelis

Two years later Beatrix wrote to Eleanor Rawnsley in connection with a missing letter from William Wordsworth which was thought to have been in her father's possession,

“Your letter speaks of many memories of HDR.  With how strong a mark his memory lingers!  I don't know if it the same with other people - I think it is.  The other day there was some question about Portinscale Bridge, and inevitably there followed the name of Canon Rawnsley.”

I sometimes ponder over what he would say of recent developments - changes for good, for evil; and for doubtful good.  It is to the good that there should be this new widespread interest in the overworked new word “amenity”; but personally I mistrust and definitely dislike some recent feelers towards a new policy.

The Canon's original aim for complete preservation by acquisition of as much property as possible was the right one for the Lake district...”

I have often been asked about the relationship between Beatrix and Hardwicke, but there is no evidence that they were other than close friends, with similar interests.  My father once told me that his father, Hardwicke's son Noël, maintained that had Beatrix not already married William Heelis when Edith Rawnsley died, Hardwicke would have married Beatrix.  However, this is pure speculation, though it is perhaps suggestive that in spite of the close friendship between the Potters and the Rawnsleys, no mention of Beatrix or of Rupert Potter is made in Eleanor Rawnsley's biography of Hardwicke, and there are no surviving letters between Beatrix and Hardwicke apart from a letter of condolence to him following Edith's death. So we shall never know.

From those letters of Beatrix Heelis to Eleanor Rawnsley it seems that Beatrix at any rate considered that Hardwicke had been the original instigator for the creation of the National Trust.  It is a pity therefore that his contribution has been rather pushed into the background, with Octavia Hill promoted as the prime mover, and the retiring figure of Sir Robert Hunter hardly featuring at all.  In my opinion however it is invidious to single out one or the other for the position of primus inter pares - all three founders, with their differing skills contributed equally to the creation of what has become indeed A Nation's Heritage.

What is it about Beatrix Potter's 'Little Books' which appeals to children and adults as well all over the world?   Many are those who have sought to find a clue to this phenomenon in the books themselves, but nobody has found a satisfactory answer.  These animals although living 'human' lives, and dressed in human clothes still remain animals they are not anthropomorphised at all, and therein lies the secret - no other writer and artist has achieved such perfection in this art - the stories are deceptively simple, but timeless, and Beatrix Potter, through them, has become not just a Nation's Heritage, but a heritage for the world, for all time.

                                                          *******

So, to end this talk I think I can do no better than to quote part of an undated testimonial to Hardwicke, preserved among his papers, the sentiments of which apply equally to Beatrix Heelis, as a benefactor of Lakeland.

40 Colne Road, Brierfield,

Reverend Sir,

You may not be [aware] of the fact that I, a humble layman, owe you a deep debt of gratitude.  Nevertheless, such is the case.

Lately I have been reading your 'Life & Nature at the Lakes', and for the beautiful simple language; the vivid descriptions of Lakeland scenery and fellside customs, and for the pure pleasure I have obtained by mentally tramping over crag and scree and wild hill top; you have made me eternally your willing debtor.

I would like to see the shepherds meet on wild Helvellyn; I would like to see the sun rise over the 'yellow mountain's crest'.  The 'Borrowdale Four' I shall never see, though it would have been life itself to have beheld them, for beneath trees the Lord seems nearer and that depth of mystery, the far sky means the rest of spirit found only in beauty ideal and pure, comes there because the distance seems within touch of thought.

I would give a whole month out of my life to behold the 'Rainbow Beauties of Windermere'.  It would be real life to see; only once, those giant hills dressed in royal ermine.  The hills are always most lovely in winter.

I must thank you for the noble work you have done in preserving for us so many of the natural beauties of Lakeland, and wresting from the hands of the builder the sweetest parts of the lake shores.

In writing to you I take up an attitude I have never assumed before.  But I will honestly show you my heart.  Never before have I read a book that has so stirred me.  I have read and re-read my Jefferies hundreds of times, but the most virile lives never sent the same thrill through me as did the simple cry of the shepherd to his dog to 'get awa' hint, theer'.

And the debt I owe you, I must do all I can to repay...   In the first place I will endeavour to pay a trifle of the amount by visiting Lakeland whenever opportunity permits; and by persuading others to do likewise.

On each visit I will use by eye, brain, heart and soul, and come back with my mind stored with colours, shapes and sentiments and a heart filled with thankfulness that I am able to see, know and appreciate all glorious and lovely things....

If I have intruded, I sincerely crave your pardon.

Believe me to be, yours very respectfully,

Joe Bates

 

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A Book of Bristol Sonnets (London and Bristol, 1877)

Dedicated to Edward Thring with the ‘Gratitude and Affection of an Old Pupil’.  This was Rawnsley’s first published book.  He writes in the Preface:

This Book has little to recommend it, and asks no praise.  But it is believed that it will fill a want here in Bristol, where men are so actively engaged, and oftentimes so wearied, in their business, that they may be glad to have some such thoughts suggested to them.

This is little more than a hand-book of such suggestions jotted down at odd moments.

And as the writer has often, when gazing on an object or scene, wished that a thought could be given him to seal that object in his memory, he deems it not improbable that there are others of like need with himself among the lovers of their old City and its neighbourhood.

In conclusion, a debt of thanks is due to all the Local Historians, past and present;  notably to Barrett, Seyer, Dallaway, Garrard, Chilcott, Corrie and Evans, Pryce, J. Taylor, and J. F. Nicholls.  The Author cannot but express a wish that the Notes appended to these Sonnets may induce a reader, here and there, to dive further into these books for himself;  and so, learning to reverence what is honourable in the past, live more nobly in the present.

Contents

Bristol of To-Day (p. 1)

A Dream of Ancient Bristol (p. 2)

Eleanor de Montfort, in Bristol Castle (p. 4)

Bristol Castle and the Tram-Cars (p. 5)

St. John’s Gate (p. 6)

St. John’s Conduit, Nelson Street (p. 8)

The Fort, Bristol (p. 9)

Bristol University College (p. 10)

Mother Pugsley’s Field, Nine-Tree Hill (p. 12)

On Noticing that the Only Lime Tree not in Bud, at College Green, Fronted the Cathedral Porch (p. 14)

On Hearing the Organ in the Cathedral, while the Work in the Nave was Suspended (p. 15)

Spire of St. Mary Redcliffe (p. 16)

St. Mary Redcliffe (p. 17)

Chatterton (p. 18)

“Tempora Mutantur.” Jefferies’ Book-Shop (p. 19)

The Oak-Chamber at Jefferies’, Redcliffe Street (p. 20)

St. Stephen’s Tower, As seen from the junction of Prince’s Street and Marsh Street (p. 22)

St. Werburgh’s Tower: Built in 1385. To be pulled down in 1877 (p. 24)

St. James’ Churchyard (p. 26)

On Hearing St. Matthew’s Peal (p. 28)

Clifton Hill: Clifton Parish Church (p. 29)

Clifton College Chapel, The Sunday of Return to School (p. 30)

Sermon in the College Chapel (p. 31)

Flavel Cook v Jenkins, April 1st, 1876 (p. 32)

Flavel Cook v Jenkins, A walk by Christ Church on the evening of the verdict, March 21, 1876 (p. 33)

Sunday in Bristol (p. 34)

On Hearing the Birds Sing, Ash Wednesday Morning (p. 35)

Good Friday in Bristol, 1876 (p. 36)

On Hearing Bells on Easter Morning (p. 37)

Whit Monday, from Ashley Hill (p. 38)

Harvest Thanksgiving at St. Barnabas (p. 39)

Site of the Ancient High Cross, At junction of High Street, Broad Street, Corn Street, and Wine Street (p. 40)

Richard Savage; or, in front of St. Peter’s Hospital. Burial Register, A.D. 1743, Richard Savage, the Poet (p. 42)

Arno’s Vale Cemetery (p. 43)

The Cripples’ Home, 34, Richmond Terrace, Clifton (p. 44)

“Little Johnny,” at the Cripples’ Home (p. 45)

The Children’s Hospital (p. 46)

In Memoriam: John Chiddy (p. 47)

Bristol Smoke in Early Morning, October (p. 48)

A Calm Evening, from Ashley Hill (p. 49)

Bristol by Gaslight, From Ashley Hill (p.  50)

A March Day, on Ashley Hill, Looking down on Bristol (p. 51)

Muller’s Orphanage, Ashley Down (p. 52)

Plucking Daisies; or, the Orphanage at the Foot of Ashley Hill (p. 53)

The Red Maids’ School (p. 54)

Mrs. Fry Visiting Newgate (p. 55)

A View of Bristol Early in the Morning, from Pur-Down (p. 56)

The Hooter, or Steam-Horn, Heard at Duchess’ Wood (p. 57)

A Service of Song in Duchess’ Park, on a May Morning (p. 58)

The Monument at Duchess’ Woods, on the Anniversary of Lady Elizabeth’s Death (p. 59)

Death of a Parishioner. A Walk to the Duchess’ Woods from Baptist Mills, on a May Morn (p. 60)

Ashton Clump and Lansdown (p. 61)

Ashton Court (p. 62)

The Blast-Furnace at Ashton Iron Works (p. 63)

Dundry Tower (p. 64)

The Knotted Elm, at Abbot’s Leigh (p. 65)

The Churchyard Gate, at Abbot’s Leigh (p. 66)

Sunset at Abbot’s Leigh (p. 67)

Ham Green; or, Reflection (p. 68)

Early Morn and Eventide, in Leigh Woods (p. 69)

On Finding the Wild Strawberry in Nightingale Valley, April 3rd (p. 70)

The Nightingale in Nightingale Valley (p. 71)

Bower-Wall and Stokesleigh Camps (p. 72)

Clifton Suspension Bridge (p. 73)

To a Thrush, Heard on Clifton Down in a January Mist (p. 74)

The Power of Spring; or, on St. Vincent’s Rocks (p. 75)

Pleasures of Imagination; or, the Jackdaws above Ghyston Cave (p. 76)

Dandelions and Daisies on the Downs; or, Jealousy (p. 77)

Clematis in Leaf on the Downs (p. 78)

May Day, in Sneyd Park Woods (p. 79)

The Sea-wall; after returning from Switzerland (p. 80)

Gossamers on the Down (p. 81)

Selfishness; or, Quiet on the Downs (p. 82)

The Eagle, at the Zoological Gardens, Clifton (p. 83)

Hannibal, the Lion in the Clifton Zoological Gardens (p. 84)

Tumbler Pigeons, over Bristol (p. 85)

True Love; or, in St. Jude’s (p. 86)

The First Swallow, Seen, April 10, on the Banks of the Frome (p. 87)

The Great Fire in Christmas Street, 1876 (p. 88)

On the Drawbridge (p. 89)

One of the Tolzey Tables, Corn Street (p. 90)

The Demerara’s Figure-Head. The Giant Savage Opposite the Stone Bridge, Quay Head (p. 92)

Games for Working Men. A Plea (p. 93)

Revival of the Sugar Trade. Finzel’s Manufactory (p. 94)

Wills’ Manufactory, Redcliffe Street, the Portrait Gallery of Old Servants In (p. 96)

On the Quay: The Lumper, or Corn-Runner (p. 97)

The Lights at the Harbour Mouth, as Seen from the Suspension Bridge (p. 98)

Outward Bound. Sunday, Early Spring (p. 99)

Homeward Bound. Midsummer (p. 100)

Avonmouth Docks, before their Completion, 1876 (p. 101)

On Seeing Two Vessels (Cutter-Rigged) Pass One Another at Avonmouth (p. 102)

“The Dying Gladiator,” by Ctesilaus. A Cast in the Vestibule of the Museum, Bristol (p. 104)

Edward Colston. Born in this City, November 2, 1636 (p. 105)

Colston Honoured; or, True Conservatism (p. 106)

Orpheus Glee Society. Colston Hall (p. 107)

Corals and Coral Islands. The Strikes. Lecture by Dr. Duncan, Colston Hall, March 6, 1876 (p. 108)

To the Conductor of the Orchestral Concert in Colston Hall (p. 109)

Dr. Moffat; or, the London Mission Meeting at Colston Hall, September 22, 1876 (p. 110)

Saturday Organ Recital in the Colston Hall (p. 111)

Chorus from “Fall of Babylon.” Bristol Musical Festival, Thursday, October 19, 1876 (p. 112)

Madlle, Albani, at the Bristol Festival, 1876 (p. 113)

The Black Helebore (Christmas Rose), at Down House (p. 114)

To a Red Rose, Growing at Ashley Grange (p. 115)

Nan’s Walk (p. 116)

Carter’s Lane, Portbury (p. 117)

Rumour of War, June, 1876. Kingsweston (p. 118)

Goblin Combe (p. 120)

Scene from Skittim Hill, Henbury. In Spring (p. 121)

View from Henbury Plain, from Fern Hill (p. 122)

Infancy; or, Going to the New Passage (p. 123)

Boyhood; or, the Ferry at the New Passage (p. 124)

Middle Age; or, Tintern Abbey (p. 125)

Old Age Coming On; or, At Tintern Abbey (p. 126)

Death; or, the Lennox Spring, between Moss Cottage and Tintern (p. 128)

Chepstow Castle (p. 130)

The Wynd-Cliff, on an April Day (p. 131)

The Moss Cottage, at the Wynd-Cliff (p. 132)

On Descending the Wynd-Cliff by the Steps to the Moss Cottage (p. 133)

Tintern Abbey (p. 134)

Tyndale’s Pillar, at Nibley Knoll (p. 135)

The Drakestone Edge (p. 136)

Berkeley Castle (p. 138)

Warleigh, near Bath (p. 139)

The Bristol Mission of 1877. On Hearing that Funds were Needed for the Completion of the Cathedral (p. 140)

Old Clevedon Churchyard, with Steep and Flat Holmes in the Distance (p. 141)

Tennyson at Clevedon (p. 142)

The Three Pictures of St. John Baptist, in the Billiard Room at Leigh Court (p. 143)

The Opening of the Avonmouth Docks. Saturday, February 24, 1877 (p. 144)

Hits: 1636

No man is an Island, entire of itself...

Those well-known words of John Donne have become something of a cliché, but I make no excuse for using them to introduce this talk,  since the focus at Allan Bank this year is of course the acquisition of Grasmere Island by the National Trust, a goal which had been in the Trust's sights since the beginning.

It has been suggested that the threat to the island on Grasmere was in fact the trigger for the actual foundation of the National Trust by my great grandfather, Canon Rawnsley, in collaboration with Octavia Hill and Sir Robert Hunter.  I would like to examine that claim; to review the circumstances leading up to the official inception of the Trust in 1895, to outline the early acquisitions of land in the Lake District in which Rawnsley was an active agent; to consider to what extent Hardwicke Rawnsley can be considered a 'Green' Victorian, and finally to reflect upon the present and future rôle of the National Trust in Lakeland.

But first of all a bit about Hardwicke's background and upbringing, and the influences which shaped his character and were to determine his career.

Canon Rawnsley is even today a name to conjure with, particularly in this part of the world.  Here he was first and foremost considered as the Defender of the Lakes, long before the National Trust came into being.

However, no man is an island – we are all, as John Donne says, metaphorically a part of the continent, (even though at this very moment the United Kingdom is trying to detach itself therefrom!) and therefore we are, in our formative years particularly, and perhaps throughout life, subject to outside influences, human and environmental.   The old philosophical argument – is it by nature or nurture that our characters are formed?  (I think most of us would say, a bit of both.)

So I would like to begin with a brief biographical sketch of Hardwicke, and then to consider three of the most important human influences on his life and character.

Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley, was born on 28 September 1851 at the Rectory, in the idyllic surroundings of Shiplake-on-Thames.  With his twin sister Frances Anna, he was among the ten children of the Rector, the Reverend Drummond Rawnsley and his wife Catherine Franklin, the niece of the explorer, Sir John Franklin, of whom we have been hearing such a lot recently.  The melting of the Arctic ice has resulted in the discovery of the wrecks of his ships Erebus and Terror, lost with all hands, during his last expedition in search of the North-West Passage.   (There is currently a major exhibition Death in the Ice, taking place at the National Maritime Museum in London)

William Wordsworth, who was to become Rawnsley's chief muse and inspiration very early in life, had died the year before Hardwicke was born.

 The second major influence on the formation of Hardwicke's character was his godfather, Edward Thring, the forward-looking educationist, who was a friend of Hardwicke's father.  Drummond Rawnsley was very interested in Thring's liberal educational theories, emphasising the discovery and drawing-out of the latent abilities and interests of each individual boy, rather than the 'one size fits all' regime of Classics and mathematics, which was the norm at the time.   It was not surprising then that Drummond Rawnsley should send his sensitive son to Thring's experimental new school at Uppingham, where Hardwicke, being more interested in nature and the arts than intellectual subjects, was to thrive.

Edward Thring, a lover of the Lakes and a great admirer of Wordsworth, introduced his godson to the poet's works and to the Lake District, where his family had a holiday house.  Hardwicke stood with his godfather at Wordsworth's grave, and walked with him in Wordsworth's Easdale, experiences he was never to forget.  For Hardwicke it was, as with so many others, Lakeland was a case of love at first sight.

After Uppingham, Rawnsley went up to Balliol College, Oxford, where it was perhaps not surprising that he distinguished himself more on the sports field than in academic pursuits!

At Balliol he became acquainted with the third major influence on the course of his life – John Ruskin, by this time a towering intellectual dynamo: artist, art patron and historian, poet, essayist and social reformer, who had for some years held the Chair of Fine Arts at the University.

Ruskin, lionised by the undergraduates, who were in considerable awe of 'The Master', had recruited many of them, including Rawnsley, to take part in an exercise of social improvement and manual labour, the repairing of a road for the villagers of Hinksey, just outside Oxford.  This project was as much for the social benefit of the student labourers, as for the welfare of the local population!

Having scraped through his degree, and given up his original idea of becoming a doctor, Hardwicke decided to follow his father and grandfather into the Church.  There followed a period of mission work in Soho in London, under the wing of Octavia Hill, to whom he was introduced by John Ruskin.  Here, overwork brought on a nervous breakdown, and Octavia arranged for him to stay for a period of recuperation with her friends the Fletchers, at the Croft in Ambleside.  Here he was to meet his future wife.

In 1875, Hardwicke was ordained curate, and was sent to take charge of the new Clifton College Mission in Bristol. He threw himself wholeheartedly into this project, in which he described himself ruefully as being half priest, half policeman, often physically having to throw drunken trouble-makers out of prayer meetings before returning to conduct the service as if nothing had happened.  Literally, you might say, muscular Christianity! 

It was while in Bristol that Hardwicke cut his campaigning teeth; leading an appeal to save the historic tower of St. Werburgh's Church, which the local council wanted to demolish to make room for a road-widening scheme.  The tower was duly saved, though moved to a new site.   Had he but known it, this campaign was a foretaste of what was to become Rawnsley's life's work.

In 1877 he was ordained priest.  His cousin, Edward Preston Rawnsley, had recently inherited Wray Castle, on the shores of Windermere, and as patron of the living, offered it to Hardwicke.   As a beneficed clergyman he was now in a position to marry.   He promptly proposed to Edith Fletcher, the daughter of his erstwhile hosts at the Croft; they married a month after his ordination, and moved into the Vicarage at Low Wray where they lost no time in becoming involved in the life of the Lake District.  Together they inaugurated craft workshops run on Ruskinian principles, and in due course went on to found the Keswick School of Industrial Arts, to provide employment and training for local artisans.

No man is an island.   No great ideas spring ready-formed from nowhere.  We are all the product of heredity, upbringing, environment and outside influences.  Chance meetings and fortuitous circumstances can change the whole course of our lives. 

So it was with Hardwicke.  There were of course other influences which shaped his character and were eventually to lead Hardwicke to become involved in the foundation of the National Trust in 1895, and more than a century later to the acquisition of Grasmere Island for the nation, but I think the most significant were the three I have already mentioned, Wordsworth, Thring and perhaps John Ruskin most of all.

First of all then, William Wordsworth.  He was born in Cockermouth, and spent almost the whole of his adult life in the Lake District, a great deal of it here in Grasmere, including a couple of years at Allan Bank, of which he became the first tenant, in 1808.   Wordsworth came passionately to love Grasmere, about which he wrote extensively, both in poetry and prose.  He frequently rowed over to the Island on the lake, as he recorded in this bucolic poem, written, as he noted, “in pencil upon a stone in the wall of the house (an outhouse) on the island at Grasmere.”

Rude is this edifice, and thou hast seen
Buildings, albeit rude, that have maintained
Proportions more harmonious, and approached
To somewhat of a closer fellowship
With the ideal grace.  Yet as it is,
Do take it in good part; alas the poor
Vitruvius of our village had no help
From the great city; never, on the leaves
Of red morocco folio, saw displayed
The skeletons and pre-existing ghost
Of beauties yet unborn – the rustic box,
Snug cot, with coach-house, shed, and hermitage.
Thou seest a homely pile – yet to these walls
The heifer comes in snow-storm, and here
The new-dropped lamb finds shelter from the wind.
And hither does one poet sometimes row
His pinnace, a small vagrant barge, up-piled
With plenteous store of heath and withered fern
(A lading which he with his sickle cuts
Among the mountains), and beneath this roof
He makes his summer couch, and here at noon
Spreads out his limbs, whiles, yet unshorn, the sheep
Panting beneath the burthen of their wool,
Lie round him, even as if they were a part
Of his own household: Nor, while from his bed
He through that door-place looks towards the lake
And to the stirring breezes, does he want
Creations lovely as the work of sleep -
Fair sights, and visions of romantic joy!

As a founder of the Romantic Movement, Wordsworth was among the first to cherish the unique and fragile natural environment of this jewel of the landscape, the English Lake District, and was most anxious that it should both be known and appreciated, as well as preserved for posterity.  His Guide to the Lakes was first published in 1810, one of the first tourist guide books.    There is no actual description of Grasmere unfortunately, but it is often mentioned in passing, in the course of his recommended itineraries round Lakeland.

Revered though he was by Rawnsley and others as the prophet of the Lake District, familiarity bred, not contempt exactly, but something of a lack of awe and respect among the indigenous population.  Hardwicke in his Reminiscences of Wordsworth Among the Peasantry of Westmoreland recounts that Wordsworth's aloofness, and habit of wandering, in very simple cloak and wide-awake hat, speaking to nobody, but muttering under his breath, had not particularly endeared him to the locals. Although they appeared to be aware that he was a famous poet, they had certainly never read any of his poetry.  In contrast, his fellow poet Hartley Coleridge, was considered to be much more approachable and jolly, and always passed the time of day with everyone he met.  But as one of Hardwicke's interlocutors explained, ' L'ile Hartley was a philosopher, while Mr. Wudsworth was a poet'.      Which naturally explained everything!

Rawnsley's profound love of Lakeland had been awakened in him to a considerable extent by Wordsworth's poetry, to which he had been introduced at an impressionable age, as I said earlier, by his godfather and headmaster, Edward Thring, himself an accomplished poet.  Hardwicke evidently knew Wordsworth's epic autobiographical poem The Prelude almost by heart, often quoting extracts from it in his writings, and Wordsworth's sonnets were the model for his own prolific poetic output, nearly always in sonnet form. 

It could be argued that Wordsworth and Edward Thring were the prophets who through Rawnsley, prepared the way,  but it is John Ruskin, whose ideas and philosophy were to shape the whole concept of the nascent organisation, who could be considered ex ante as the fourth, invisible, founder of the National Trust.  Or, at least as its eminence grise. 

In 1849, in The Lamp of Memory Ruskin had written:

“God has lent us the earth for our life; it is a great entail; it belongs as much to those who come after us as to us; and we have no right by anything that we do or neglect; to involve them in unnecessary penalties; or to deprive them of benefits which it was in our power to bequeath.”

Rawnsley certainly subscribed to that credo.

Ruskin's ideas of social justice had influenced not only Hardwicke but also Octavia Hill, who long before the inception of the National Trust, was a well known figure and a force to be reckoned with in the areas of social housing and the conservation of open spaces in urban areas.  Octavia had herself been a student of 'The Master'. It was Octavia, as I said earlier, who was instrumental in Rawnsley meeting Edith Fletcher, who became his wife, and with whom he was later to work so tirelessly on social and educational projects in Lakeland.

So to return to Ruskin's 'Great Entail', what were the factors which increasingly threatened the natural environment?

First, the increasing pace of industrialisation and the rapid growth of cities such as Manchester; and the expansion of the railway network, which made mass tourism a possibility, in the process, creating a threat to unspoilt landscapes.  These factors made the conservation of ancient buildings and monuments as well as the rural environment, a matter for urgent action.

Early initiatives to stem the tide of destruction were the Commons Preservation Society, founded in 1865 on the initiative of Lord Eversley; the Kyrle Society, founded in 1875 by Miranda Hill, sister of Octavia; and the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, founded in 1877 by William Morris and others.

These initiatives were timely, but John Ruskin had been ahead of the game.  As early as 1854 he had written to the Society of Antiquaries to ask them to support his scheme for a Fund to preserve mediaeval buildings, offering personally to subscribe £25 annually for such a purpose.  What came to be known as the 'Conservation Fund' was set up and Ruskin duly stumped up his £25 but it never really got off the ground.  The Fund, unable to attract sufficient donations, never had enough money or enough clout to achieve a great deal.

In 1871 Ruskin made his home at Brantwood on the shores of Coniston Water, and his advice and support were frequently sought by Rawnsley in connection with various Lake District campaigns, as well as the countless other initiatives in which he and his wife were involved.

Edith Hope Scott, in her 1931 account of Ruskin's Guild of St. George, quotes a letter from Hardwicke, written in 1896 from Crosthwaite, in which he acknowledges his debt to Ruskin's influence.   (Two years earlier Ruskin had appointed Rawnsley as a member of the Guild of St. George) While ruefully confessing that he has done too little to justify Ruskin's acceptance of him to his circle of knights, he goes on to say “that he has not been unmindful of what he had promised, and that he had endeavoured, no matter how humbly, to work for the Master in the Guild spirit.   All the work for kindness to animals, for children's happiness; for working-men's joy in handicraft; my Keswick School of Art, my May Queen Festival,etc., etc., is owed to John Ruskin.”

Requesting Hope Scott to ask the St. George's Guild members to indicate what actual work they were doing on St. George's lines, Hardwicke goes on, “This will stimulate us and encourage us... and since example is better than precept, I send you an account of our National Trust, for which again St. George is answerable...”

John Ruskin, famous and respected until the end of his life, rather fell out of fashion after his death, and the extent of his influence in the areas of conservation, and indeed as a personal guru of Rawnsley is, I think, only now beginning to be appreciated. 

(At this point I would like to acknowledge a considerable debt of gratitude to Michael Allen, who is in the course of preparing a Canon Rawnsley website, for the enormous amount of information he has been generous enough to share with me during the course of my preparation for this lecture, including some very useful material on Ruskin.)

While the remit of the Commons Preservation Society, had been widened to include the protection of public rights of way, and, in conjunction with the Kyrle Society, to the preservation of beautiful areas of countryside whether in public or in private ownership, there was as yet no truly national organisation to undertake the preservation of the unspoilt landscape and places of historic interest.   This lack was increasingly  being recognised by Rawnsley, who from his earliest years as incumbent of Wray, had involved himself in various campaigns to prevent the despoliation of the fragile environment of the Lakes. 

Hardwicke defended public rights of access to the fells and campaigned against the closure of footpaths, most notably, or perhaps most notoriously, in 1887, in connection with access to Skiddaw over Latrigg and Fawe Park.  He mobilised objections to road-building around Loughrigg and over Sty Head Pass and brought pressure to bear against the re-opening of the lead mines in Borrowdale, to service the increasing demand for lead occasioned by the building boom; he campaigned to prevent the blasting of a quarry on Loughrigg; he objected to telegraph poles disfiguring Grasmere Common.

And as if this were not enough, he took up arms against the damming of lakes, objecting to the despoliation of the unspoilt natural beauty of Thirlmere by its conversion into a reservoir, to increase the water supply to Manchester.  This particular battle was among the first to bring him to national notice, but it was to be one of the few campaigns in which he had eventually to acknowledge defeat.   Realising that the urgent need for an adequate water supply for the fast-growing city had to override aesthetic considerations, he conceded the field with a good grace, but did however keep a watchful eye on the management of the amenities, and the landscaping of the surrounding area in the following years.

Railway encroachment, both for passenger traffic and industrial purposes, was another very real threat, and Rawnsley was not slow to act, though he was not the first to take up the cudgels.   As early as 1844 William Wordsworth, foreseeing the danger of a north-south bisection of the Lake District by the railway, had voiced his objections to the building of a line from Kendal to Windermere, fearing an eventual extension to Keswick via Ambleside and Grasmere. 

Wordsworth's prescience was justified, when some 30 years later it was rumoured that an extension of the line was indeed being planned from Windermere to Ambleside, just as the poet had feared.  Robert Somervell, with the support of Ruskin, published a pamphlet in protest against the extension of the railways in the Lake District, and prepared a petition to Parliament.  In the event however, nothing came of this particular project, but there was a general feeling that this was just the calm before the storm.  

As indeed proved to be the case. 

In 1882, in the absence of any permanent 'watchdog' to safeguard the landscape of the Lake District, a Bill, to permit the building of a rail line to carry slate from the quarries at Honister to the railhead, almost slipped through Parliament unnoticed.  However, and fortunately before it was too late, Rawnsley and others found out what was going on.  It is probably worth quoting in full Hardwicke's broadside published in the Spectator dated 10 February 1883:

“We dwellers at the Lakes have been electrified to find that whilst men slept, the proprietors of certain slate quarries on Honister Pass have got a Railway Bill past private inquiry unopposed; have complied with standing orders, and sent it on to the Select Committee of the House of Commons. This Bill is to empower them to do irreparable mischief to the loveliest part of our English Lake scenery.  It is proposed to run a railway for the slate waggons down into Borrowdale, thence to skirt the west side of Derwentwater, where it will be impossible, from the nature of the ground, to hide their line of rails—no trees or intervening rocks exist there—to pass under Catbells, thence to cross the Vale of Newlands, and to join the Keswick and Cockermouth Railway at Braithwaite.

“This will mean that Borrowdale and Derwentwater will no longer be the quiet resting-ground for weary men. The slate -waggons will be joined at no distant time by passenger waggons, and the unwelcome, unappreciative navvy will make room at his side for the beer-drinking excursionist from Keswick to Honister, " all the way for 6d." Artists will be exiled, and the exquisite terrace lawn of the grassy steep west side of Derwentwater will be maddened with shrieks of engines shunting, or heavy trains of slate howling and roaring as they carry their loads to Braithwaite.

“When will the State protect the manifest good of the health- seeking majority, against the private-pocket schemes of the adventurous, money-seeking minority?  Is not England each year needing more and more its pleasure-grounds "to health and resting consecrate," to be preserved inviolably for its busy, bustling children, who seek rest and, alas! too often find none?  Will you not, Sir, help us in this matter to swell the chorus of dissatisfaction, that for a few pence a load extra to the Company who project this Buttermere and Braithwaite Railway, the thousands who come to Borrowdale should find the old haunts of peace and beauty possessed by slate-waggons, and their attendant nuisances?  If the slate is really necessary to the public, the public will pay the cartage, as heretofore.  If the public will not pay the cartage, it looks as if they could get as good slate cheaper elsewhere.  I can do little but urge publicity to be given to the case, and invite the strong co-operative opposition to the scheme that seems to be needed without delay.—I am, Sir,& c., Hardwicke D. Rawnsley”.

This rallying cry had the desired effect; a Derwentwater and Borrowdale Defence Committee, of which Rawnsley, Gordon Somervell and W.H. Hills were the leading lights, was quickly formed in response to the threat, and the Railway Bill was withdrawn in April.

Hardwicke, still incumbent of the living of Wray, where the small amount of parish work gave him plenty of spare time to direct his energies elsewhere, now saw his opportunity.  He had for some time considered that a permanent Association for the protection of the Lake District from unscrupulous development was overdue, and here was his chance.   The furore over the projected desecration of the Vale of Newlands, so beloved of the poet, had raised the awareness of the members of the Wordsworth Society of the very real threat posed by uncontrolled railway development.  The members of the Society were drawn from a wide spectrum of the arts and professions, people with influence and contacts.    So on 2^nd May of that same year, 1883, Hardwicke, as an active member of the Society, presented a paper to its members, diplomatically engaging their interest with his opening sentence:

“My only excuse for reading this paper, is that anything that pertains to the English Lake District has an interest for members of the Wordsworth Society, and the battle that was lately fought and won against the steam-dragon of Honister – the Braithwaite and Buttermere Railway – is a thing of the past; but to Wordsworth is owed thanks for the winning of it; and we may fitly thank him in the strength of whose spirit the victory was gained.”

Wordsworth, Ruskin and St. George had won the day, and Hardwicke used his power of oratory to the best effect by massaging the egos of the Wordsworth Society members, highlighting their efforts in support of the campaign, which had resulted in the defeat of the Bill.

After some ten pages, he gets to the point:

“Our only chance of keeping Lakeland inviolate is to be on the watch with a powerful national, one might dare to say international, committee... with a backing of Members of Parliament to help us at Westminster.”   (And with a hint to the wealthy among the audience that they might dig deep into their pockets); “with a considerable sum of money behind us for expenses if need be.”

What was needed then was a permanent Defence Society, which in collaboration with the Commons Preservation Society, and other conservation organisations, would have sufficient clout to prevent the destruction of Wordsworth's shrine.  To this end he diplomatically reminds his audience of their duty to preserve Wordsworth's spirit for the current generation and the generations to come. This was a masterstroke of diplomacy on Rawnsley's part; diplomacy not always it has to be said, being his strongest point, and this clarion call to arms turned out to be a major landmark in the conservation of Lakeland. 

The Lake District Defence Society which was born as a result of this meeting was to prove the template from which the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty was to be created some 12 years later.

The railways had already attracted considerable tourist traffic to Windermere, and envious glances were being cast by Ambleside commercial interests wanting to share in the prosperity which the advent of a rail link would undoubtedly bring to their district.  Colonel Rhodes, a local landowner who had campaigned with Hardwicke in 1878 against the closure of the footpath to Stock Ghyll waterfall, now changed sides, and offered land for the building of a railway terminus.

By 1886 it was reported in the press that an Ambleside Railway Bill had been deposited for debate in Parliament the following year, and a bitter and acrimonious campaign ensued, in which the Lake District Defence Society was a major player.  For once though, Hardwicke, suffering from nervous strain brought on by overwork, did not play an active role, the cudgels being taken up by W.H. Hills on behalf of the Lake District Defence Society.   Claims and counter-claims flew to and fro in the correspondence columns of the national newspapers, each side accusing the other of making misleading statements or simply of telling lies, but Hills, in a letter to The Times in December 1886 reiterated what nobody could possibly deny, that the Lake Country is, as he wrote,

“Not only a tract of landscape beauty more perfect in its way than any to be found within the same narrow compass elsewhere in Europe, but nearly every hill and every stream, every glen and hamlet; every nook and corner of this miniature Switzerland is steeped in the memories of some of the greatest and purest lights of English literature; many of whose noblest springs of inspiration were found by the sides of its unpolluted streams; and amid the solitude of its lonely fells.

John Ruskin, when asked for his opinion on yet another railway project, voiced it with some asperity in a letter first published in the Birmingham Gazette:

“I do not write now further concerning railroads here or elsewhere.  They are to me the loathsomest form of devilry now extant, animated and deliberate earthquakes; destructive of all wise social habit or possible natural beauty; carriages of damned souls on the ridges of their own graves.”   

(I wonder what he would have said about HS2!)

The row continued unabated for some months, but in the end and ironically, mainly thanks to the withdrawal of support by the London and North Western Railway, who stated that they would not operate the line if it was built, the Ambleside Railway Bill was thrown out on financial grounds, and the Lake District Defence Society had won the day.  It had been a close-run thing.

But railways were not the only threat to the fragile environment of the Lakes.  The mass tourism made possible by them brought with it other problems, problems which continue to provide a headache for the National Trust and other conservation bodies to this day.  The increasing influx of visitors threatened to destroy the scenery which had attracted them in the first place.  Landowners, irritated by gates being left open and stock escaping, closed footpaths and rights of access to beauty spots.  

Hardwicke did not hesitate to mobilise the great and good in support of the numerous campaigns in which he was involved.   Among them was Beatrix Potter, whom he had first met in 1882, the year before he took over the living of St. Kentigern at Crosthwaite.  Her father had rented Wray Castle for the summer.  Beatrix was to become a lifelong friend and supporter and a considerable benefactor of the National Trust.  In 1912, already well known as a children's writer, she joined Hardwicke in objecting to threatened ribbon development and the construction of a hydroplane factory on the shores of Windermere.  Had this gone ahead it would have destroyed for ever, the Roman Camp at Borrans Field.  

Hardwicke's campaigning zeal was not confined to combating threats to the environment.  As a man with a well developed social conscience, once installed at Keswick, he took an interest in promoting better nutrition; in improving standards of education, in the process of which he was instrumental in founding several new schools, and in combating drunkenness through support of the Temperance Movement.  In the spirit of Ruskin, from his earliest years as incumbent of Low Wray, he worked to revive traditional Lakeland arts and crafts, in 1884 founding with his wife Edith, the Keswick School of Industrial Arts, run on Ruskinian principles, to provide training and employment for local men..  Here the classes in repoussé metalwork which Edith had started while Hardwicke was still incumbent of Wray, were extended to include more ambitious work in copper, brass, silver and pewter; often using traditional Norse designs from Cumbrian tradition.  Classes in wood-carving and weaving followed.  The KSIA, which was eventually housed in a purpose-built Arts & Crafts building on the banks of the Greta, endured for 100 years, specialising latterly in the creation of objects in stainless steel.  Many examples of  KSIA work can still be seen in St. Kentigern's Church, Crosthwaite, where Edith Rawnsley herself designed the reredos and the metalwork gates to the churchyard.

To return to Grasmere:

Prince of Wales Island, in the middle of Grasmere, came up for sale in 1893, and was bought at auction together with a building plot at Town End, by a Mr. John Thomas Belk, a solicitor from Middlesbrough.  Mr. Belk set about 'improving' the island by erecting a flagstaff and putting up a few notices.   These 'improvements' drew a polite protest from Mr. W.H. Hills of the Lake District Defence Society, who wrote to protest:

“As neighbours, we have some delicacy in approaching you about the changed character of the island in Grasmere, which has lately become yours.  The island, in its former state of simple turf and fir-cluster has become historic.  Wordsworth's poems describe it and painters from all parts of the world have painted it.  Sacred in its simplicity, it was honoured in the literature of the English-speaking race and in the memories of residents and visitors.  We dare to think that to change the appearance of the island by planting it with unornamented shrubs would be a loss.  And we are so sure that the association with hotels, restaurants and seaside villas which is suggested by a flagstaff is out of keeping, that in the best interests of the neighbourhood, we venture to ask if you will consider allowing the island to revert to its former condition.  We note with regret that the gale has robbed your island of some of the celebrated Scotch Firs.  We should willingly bear the cost of any such replanting of the fir-cluster as shall seem good to you....”

This somewhat officious intervention was not taken in good part by Mr. Belk who, in righteous indignation, thundered in reply:

“You and some persons, neither residents of Grasmere nor neighbours of mine, inform me how I am to deal with property I purchased at an auction months ago.  Had you and your associates desired to regulate the manner in which the property was to be managed, it was competent for you to have bought it at the auction.   Now you stand quietly by, leave somebody else to purchase the property, and then desire to insist on your own views.  You are hardly respectful when you charge me with vulgarising the valley. 

I intend the flagstaff to continue on the island at least until my neighbours in Grasmere satisfy me that it is a disfigurement of the valley.  I have not heard that the owners of other flagstaffs there have been communicated with by you in such terms.  Notice boards have not been placed on the island.  Some small iron intimations for the benefit of the public have been placed six inches above the ground, and those shall remain there....   I suggest that you and your friends, who seem to have leisure, do not waste it over flagstaffs.”

History does not relate what happened to the flagstaff, but was the failure to acquire this historic island for conservation a crucial factor in the founding of the National Trust a short time later?

Evidence for this suggestion appeared in an article by Norman R. Vennew, entitled The Preservation of Buildings and Scenery of National Interest, A Talk with Canon Rawnsley, which appeared in an undated journal called Great Thoughts.   Asked how it was that he first came to have the idea of such a society as 'The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty', Rawnsley is quoted as replying:

“Well, you see, I had long had my thoughts turned to something of the kind from my close connections with the 'Commons and Footpaths Preservation' movement.  I had taken rather a prominent part in endeavouring to keep open for the full and free use of the public such footpaths and roads as were being encroached upon by landowners and other authorities in my neighbourhood at the English Lakes.  The step from this to desiring to have some responsible body which could, and would similarly watch over and protect splendid and historic buildings, beautiful pieces of scenery and national objects of intense interest, was a natural one.  So it is not to be wondered at that I soon began to think seriously on this matter, and to endeavour to do something towards initiating a movement with this object in view.

“What brought the idea to a head was the fact that – about the year 1895, if I remember rightly - there came into prominence some magnificent pieces of scenery in my own Lake District which were likely to be lost to the public use unless they could be secured and held in trust by some authoritative body as a national possession.  These were the famous Falls of Lodore, the island of Grasmere, and also the summit of Snowdon, in North Wales.

“Now I felt that it would be shame on us for all time if we allowed those three splendid objects to skip through our fingers as national assets, and to become private property.  But we had no organisation that could step in and offer to protect them.  I knew from frequent experience how much working-men appreciated such glorious scenery, and how much they loved to visit it.  So I resolved to make an effort to start some movement which might help in the preservation of such places for the nation.  I first consulted the late Miss Octavia Hill, who with the late Sir Robert Hunter, had long and assiduously worked on behalf of the Footpaths Preservation Society and the Kyrle Society and whose sympathies in this other matter would, I felt sure, be very keen.  Miss Hill, with her wide experience, quite agreed with me that it was just the right time to begin such a movement, and she advised me at once to consult Sir Robert.

“I did so, and found him an eager sympathiser.  Then, on his recommendation, and on Miss Hill's also, I next saw the late Duke of Westminster, who had always taken intense interest in the preservation and upkeep of such historic and beautiful spots.  Sir Robert Hunter, with myself, had an interview with his Grace, and not only did the Duke promise us his powerful support freely and fully but he lent us his house in Grosvenor Square for a first meeting of influential people, with the view of forming a strong society which should carry out the aims and objects set forth....

“At that first meeting”, the Canon recalled, “we formed the Trust.  We consulted Lord Eversley, then Mr. Shaw-Lefevre, and Lord Bryce, then Mr. James Bryce, whose legal skill and wise advice were much appreciated by us, and we got a Charter from the Board of Trade, so as to make our position as strong and secure as possible.”

Octavia Hill had died in 1912 and Robert Hunter in 1913, so that article, unfortunately undated, was probably published in late 1913 or early 1914 since there is no mention of the outbreak of the First World War.

Old men forget.  Were this the only evidence, apart from a mention in Eleanor Rawnsley's biography of Hardwicke; a mention which seems to be almost a verbatim quotation from that article; were this the only evidence to support the contention that the private sale of Grasmere Island was the trigger for the foundation of the National Trust, it could be considered a flimsy foundation on which to build a theory.  Fortuitously, however, it has come to light that as early as July 1899 Rawnsley had contributed a paper to Saint George: The Journal of the Ruskin Society of Birmingham, which corroborates this account. 

The following is a brief extract:

“The way in which the Trust came into being was simple enough.  During the past twenty years I had noticed in what great peril from railway incursions, mine exploitations, and the like, our little beautiful bit of, as yet undisfigured Lake country had been.  I have fought the hydra-headed monster 'Progress', and by the help of friends and Members of Parliament have done something to protect that little bit of playground …  But all the time there was growing upon me the conviction that unless we could nationalise the district, that great playground for the North Country millions of Lancashire and Yorkshire was doomed.  Long and earnest talk with such people as the Duke of Westminster; Mr. G.F. Watts, the Rt. Hon. G. Shaw Lefevre, Sir Robert Hunter, Lord Thring, Miss Octavia Hill, and others, made me feel that the time had come when the Legislature might step in wisely and nationalise the district.  Nevertheless there was grave doubt whether they would even appoint local commissioners to have jealous eyes upon any damage or desecration by unnecessary exploitation. 

“Then, suddenly, I heard that an island in Grasmere was to be offered for sale; then Lodore Falls came into the market; at the same time Snowdon was sold.  My heart was hot within me; and I suggested that; pending legislation; a Company or a Society should be formed capable of holding any beautiful bit of scenery or historic site for the good of the people.”

As it happened, Octavia Hill had simultaneously been in contact with a correspondent in America who had outlined to her a scheme set on foot in Massachusetts, for the purchase or acquisition by deed of gift of beautiful or historic land or monuments pro bono publico, exempt from taxation as long as the sites remained open to the public.

Armed with the details of this American scheme, Rawnsley laid it before the committee, which first met in London in 1894, and which was subsequently incorporated as the National Trust for the Preservation of Objects of Historical Interest or Natural Beauty, the following year. 

We left the newly-formed National Trust, following its incorporation in 1895.  Filled with enthusiasm and wasting no time, the Committee set to work at once to identify suitable properties to acquire.  Almost immediately Rawnsley was able to announce the acquisition of the Trust's first property, Dinas Oleu – the Fortress of Light, a small area of drystone wall-enclosed grazing on a headland overlooking the beautiful Mawddach Estuary at Barmouth on the coast of Wales. 

The donor was Mrs. Fanny Talbot, an old friend of Hardwicke's, a disciple of Ruskin and a member of his Guild of St. George.  She had originally intended the property as a gift to the Guild.  However she had since changed her mind, having taken offence with Ruskin a year or two earlier.  She was miffed by his refusal to take an interest in the day-to-day running of a row of cottages below the cliff, which she had given to the Guild as a co-operative housing scheme.  She was now seeking a new beneficiary.  Hardwicke saw his chance and suggested the National Trust as an eminently suitable recipient!

Visitors to Dinas Oleu today need to be pretty fit – it is a long way up, and a steep climb, as I know to my cost, having acted as porter and carried all his equipment for Joe Cornish, the photographer who took this image for Graham Murphy's Founders of the National Trust!

The first building bought by the Trust was the historic but dilapidated half-timbered Clergy House at Alfriston below the Sussex Downs near Lewes.  This is what it looked like in 1894.

For this magnificent mediaeval Wealden hall house, now beautifully restored and set in a splendid recreation of a Tudor garden, the princely sum of £10 was paid to the Church Commissioners. 

Rather incongruously in such a setting, today's visitors are invited to relax in a row of rather dilapidated deckchairs, screen-printed with the portraits of the three founders of the National Trust, Sir Robert Hunter, Hardwicke Rawnsley and Octavia Hill!

As the new century dawned, John Ruskin succumbed to an influenza epidemic and died at his home at Brantwood. The pall for his coffin, designed by Edith Rawnsley, was created of Ruskin linen and hand-embroidered with wild roses. 

Hardwicke mourned the loss of The Master in this sonnet:

John Ruskin - At Rest.  Sunday 21 January 1900
The rose of morning fades, and ghostly pale
The mountains seem to move into the rain;
The leafless hedges sigh, the water-plain
Sobs; and a sound of tears is in the vale;
For he whose voice for right shall never fail,
Whose spirit-sword shall ne'er be drawn in vain -
God's Knight, at rest beyond the touch of pain;
Lies clad in Death's impenetrable mail.

And all the men whose helmets ever wore
The wild red rose St. George for sign has given
Stand round; and bow the head and feel their swords;
And swear by him who taught them deeds not words:
To fight for Love; till, as in days of yore
Labour have joy, and earth be filled with Heaven.

As a tribute to his memory, Rawnsley suggested that an appeal be launched by the National Trust for a memorial to the man who had been to a considerable extent the inspiration for all three founders' appreciation of nature and historic architecture. 

The memorial, a monolith of Borrowdale slate with a bronze medallion portrait of 'The Master,' was erected on Friar's Crag on the shores of Derwentwater, on land which was later to be bought by public subscription as a memorial to Hardwicke himself.

Ruskin had written of Friars Crag:

“The first thing which I remember; as an event in life was the intense joy; mingled with awe; that I had in looking through the hollows of the mossy roots, over the crag into the dark lake...”

Those mossy roots still adorn the margins of the lake.

Early National Trust acquisitions in Lakeland in which Rawnsley played a major part included the beautiful 100-acre Brandlehow Estate below Catbells, on the western shore of Derwentwater, which came onto the market eighteen months after the erection of the Ruskin memorial.  A condition of the sale was that the purchase price of £6,500 should be raised within six months. 

Appeals committees set to work in Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool and in Rawnsley's home parish of Keswick.  Appeal letters were sent out to 'all lovers of Ruskin' and contributions were solicited in factories in all the main industrial centres in the north of England.  Many ordinary workers sent small sums, with touching accompanying letters.  One man sent two shillings; saying that he “once saw Derwentwater and could never forget it, and that he would try to persuade his mates to help.”

Within five months the target was exceeded by more than £1,000.  Princess Louise, as Vice-President of the National Trust, performed the opening ceremony in typical Lake District weather – freezing cold and damp; a howling gale tore the marquee to shreds and rendered the speeches inaudible, but at least, as The Times noted, the rain held off for the ceremony!  Her Royal Highness and her husband the Duke of Argyll each planted an oak tree.  The three founders, Canon Rawnsley, Sir Robert Hunter and Miss Octavia Hill followed suit.

Exactly 100 years later, to mark the centenary of that occasion I too was invited to plant an oak tree at Brandelhow.   Once again I am sorry to say, on a freezing cold day and in a howling gale, though I don't think it actually rained either.  And I did have the benefit of a microphone!

A larger appeal for Gowbarrow Fell and the beautiful waterfall at Aira Force followed.  In his book Round the Lake Country, published in 1909, Rawnsley took the opportunity to acknowledge the support of those who had subscribed. 

 “When the Speaker on August 9 of 1906 declared Gowbarrow Fell and Aira Force open to the public for ever, under the direction of the National Trust; he said humourously: 'You have all heard, I have no doubt, of how a mountain was once in labour and brought forth a mouse.  On this occasion it is the mice that have been in labour and brought forth a mountain'.

“As one of the mice who have laboured to obtain this Fell for the joy of the people, it would be well for me to put on record at once our thanks to the sixteen hundred public-spirited persons who have enabled us of the National Trust to add this noble property to our list of places to be preserved for the nation in their ancient beauty to all time.”

Always an opportunist, Rawnsley goes on to urge, “people who feel that they are passing away to the silent land, and have no heirs and much money to bequeath, shall remember that, in addition to the Bible Society; the Infirmary, and the Homes for Dogs and Cats, there is a Society which by its work, is doing its best to keep the Book of God's older Scriptures – the Book of Nature – open for the people.”

And in case his reader misses the point, he hammers it home by adding that the National Trust is,  “a Society that prevents the need of the infirmary by ministering to the holiday, the rest and health, of the toilers of the land; and that, at any rate, if the cat be a wild cat, that fast disappearing creature from our English fell-land, the National Trust will give it a chance of a home”,   and so on, in the same vein, for another couple of pages. 

After Aira Force, Grange Fell in Borrowdale; the Bowder Stone as a monument to King Edward VII; the Castlerigg Stone Circle, of which Rawnsley was joint donor; the remains of the Roman Fort at Borran's Field and Queen Adelaide's Hill were all acquired for the benefit of the nation.

From then on a steady stream of Lakeland properties were acquired by the National Trust, acquisitions in which Rawnsley as an active Hon. Secretary would have been closely involved.

Like many Victorians, Rawnsley had a somewhat morbid interest in memorials, an interest unfortunately given ample scope as a result of the casualties of the First World War, and the public was encouraged by him to subscribe to the gift of open spaces to the National Trust as memorials to the fallen. Rawnsley himself gave a viewpoint in Borrowdale, which he named Peace Howe, as a memorial to the men of Keswick who lost their lives in the conflict.

Other acquisitions included the summit of Scafell Pike, given in 1920 by Lord Leconfield in memory of the men of the Lake District who fell in the War, and Castle Crag, as a memorial to the men of Borrowdale.

Nearly all of Rawnsley's Lakeland titles, apart from Literary Associations of the English Lakes, which first appeared in 1895, were published after 1899, and were written with the principal aim of raising the profile of the National Trust, and encouraging visitors to its properties in Lakeland.   The first of these publications, Life and Nature at the English Lakes, is dedicated, “to my dear friend Mrs. Talbot (the benefactor of Dinas Oleu) whose heart is in the Lake Country.”

Rawnsley's last, and only non-Lakeland title after 1895, A Nation's Heritage, is an account of visits to Trust properties in the West Country; dictated to his long-suffering second wife Eleanor Simpson, on their honeymoon in 1918, and has a tear-out National Trust membership application slip bound into the back of the volume, the requested annual subscription being ten shillings.

Apart from acting as Honorary Secretary to the National Trust from its foundation until his death, and as we have seen, being instrumental in the acquisition of many Lakeland beauty spots by the Trust, Hardwicke in turn influenced others to benefit the Lake District by persuading them to donate land or money to appeals for the purchase of properties.   Among these donors, pride of place must be given to Beatrix Potter.  Either during her lifetime or by her legacies, and as a direct result of her friendship with Hardwicke, Beatrix Potter donated several farms and vast areas of unspoilt Lake District countryside to the National Trust.  Many others have followed her lead.

So, to move on to the last part of the title of this talk: 

To what extent can the epithet 'green Victorian' be applied to Hardwicke Rawnsley?  Victorian he obviously was, but whether or not he could be described as ‘Green’ will depend of course upon what is understood by the epithet, ‘Green’.

'Greenness' was not a term used in the 19^th century, and seems to have come into common parlance more in the 20^th century with the rise of the 'Green' political parties in the 1960's.  So what is meant by 'Green'?

The  American writers Vicky Albritton and Fredrik Albritton Jonsson, in their book entitled Green Victorians – the Simple Life in John Ruskin's Lake District, in which Rawnsley plays a supporting rôle, take it to mean a reaction against the steam-driven industrialisation of the means of production, the mass-produced manufacture of cheap and shoddy goods, the mushrooming of cities, the exploitation of the workforce ('hands') in insanitary factories, combined with a longing to return to the simpler way of life and, what its exponents saw, as the dignity of labour, and the joy experienced by their creators in producing well-made hand-crafted goods, while at the same time respecting the fragility of nature.

In this spirit was begun what came to be known as the Ruskin Linen Industry, founded by Albert Fleming, a devoted disciple of Ruskin.  A middle-aged bachelor from London, on holiday in the Lake District he discovered for himself the joy of spinning, and longed Canute-like to stem the tide of industrialisation and to teach the ancient and all-but-lost skills of their grandparents to the new generation.  He and other followers of Ruskin wanted to revive and preserve an element of the traditional Lakeland economy associated with that simpler way of life. 

Fleming was no woolly-headed idealist however, and ran what my father would have called 'a tight ship', and to the surprise of many, the Ruskin Linen Industry made a small but steady profit.  A letter from Fleming to Rawnsley dated January 1885 survives, in which he asks the by now Vicar of Crosthwaite, Keswick and Canon of Carlisle Cathedral, to look out for some new recruits as outworkers for this cottage industry:

“Six new spinsters would be a real help – the poorer the better, as they then work more eagerly and regularly...  When you have six likely women in view will you kindly write or wire to Miss Twelves, St. Martins, Elterwater and she will arrange to come over and teach them.”

***

Michael Allen suggests, in his forthcoming essay on Hardwicke's early poetry, that a crucial difference between Rawnsley, Wordsworth, Ruskin and other Victorian commentators, is that while they longed for a return to a nostalgic past, Rawnsley was anxious to preserve the monuments and traditions of the past not as it were 'in aspic' but in order that the generations as yet unborn, might learn from them, so as to build a new future.  The past and present are a continuum, and knowledge of the past, which can be obtained by the preservation of ancient monuments and traditions, informs and enlightens the present. 

I think I agree with this analysis, which in the terms of the Albrittons' definition of  'Green', as a wish to recreate the nostalgic past, would make Rawnsley not so 'green' after all, but perhaps more of a prophet of the future.  What a pity therefore that; as experience tells us, the lessons of history are never learned!

In contrast to Ruskin and his circle, Rawnsley wanted the 'green and pleasant land' of the Lakes to be preserved as a resource for recreation and peace for the workers in the increasingly industrial cities, while at the same time ensuring that the traditional way of life, hill-farming and local craft industries could continue to provide employment for the resident population.  Wordsworth too, as the Albrittons acknowledge, was on the side of the shepherd.  He considered that “the rough hills and poor soils of the region ennobled the mind, by fostering habits of independence, industry and self-sufficiency.  In his poem, Michael, (a shepherd), the eponymous hero loves his farm more than his own blood, and his character was inseparable from the fields and hills which were his living being”.

What was true for Wordsworth is still true today.  James Rebanks, whose family has farmed in the same area of the Lake District for 600 years, in his account of The Shepherd's Life which I read as part of my preparation for this lecture, makes this eloquently clear.  The life of a hill-farmer today, in spite of the modern amenities of quad-bikes, electricity and running water, is still a hard and lonely one, governed by the unforgiving nature of the landscape, the fells and the weather, just as it had been for Wordsworth's Michael.   But in spite of it all, his Herdwick sheep and the lakeland fells are the love of his life, which he would not exchange for all the world. 

Rebanks, with whom I have been in touch after reading his book, considers that of all the poets and writers about the Lakes; Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, Collingwood and of course Ruskin; all, with the exception of Wordsworth, southerners to a man; Hardwicke Rawnsley and following his lead, Beatrix Potter, had arguably the most progressive attitude to the native people and culture of the Lake District.  The reason being, he says, that they understood the divide between the romantic, aesthetic literary view of the Lakes, and that of the fells as a working environment for the often unheard local people, and “sought to get closer to the people he knows”.  He suggests that, “after them, there was a backward step, culminating in Wainwright and a sort of reduction of the place to fell-walking and urban escape”.

***

Being interested in every aspect of Lakeland life, Rawnsley certainly made it his business to learn about hill farming and the lives of the local people, and much of his, often lyrical, writing about the Lakes is devoted to tales about them, and to descriptions of the cycle of life on a fell farm.  He wanted to inform his readers:  The Sheepdog Trials at Troutbeck, At Brig-End for the Sheep-Clipping, On Helvellyn with the Shepherds, for example, are some of the chapter headings in his Lakeland writings.

In his By Fell and Dale at the English Lakes, published in 1911, Rawnsley discourses on the rearing of the incredibly hardy native Herdwick sheep, which were thought to have been introduced by the Vikings.

He had evidently made himself something of an expert, and he gives a detailed account of the breeding activities at different times of the year, the ear-marking or 'smitting' of the flocks and the centuries-old method of counting the sheep in what may have been a memory of old Norse.  This varied from one Vale to another, but unfortunately today has largely been forgotten, though James Rebanks tells me that he remembers his grandfather's generation continuing that tradition. In Borrowdale for example the numerals one to ten were Yan, Tyan, Tethera, Methera, Pimp, Sethera, Lethera, Hovera, Dovera, Dick, and so on.

In spite of their vicissitudes, and narrowly escaping being wiped out during the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001, the Herdwick sheep continue an important feature of the Lake country today, and for this reason I would like to share with you a couple of brief extracts from Rawnsley's book: 

“Visitors to our Lake Country; as they ramble over the fells, must be constantly struck with the exceeding beauty of the delicate, lithe, little sheep; with their shy black faces and their dainty feet; that give life to the mountain-side...

“The most remarkable characteristics of these Herdwick sheep are their homing instinct and their marvellous memories.  For example: a flock of sheep, driven down a road which was blocked at the time, had to pass through a gate, and so back again through another opening in the wall to the roadway.  This was when they were being driven back to the fells:  They did not pass along that road again for many months.  The road was no longer blocked; and the wall had been built up; but as soon as they came to that place they all topped the wall and insisted on going back again through the gate.  I have myself seen a flock driven along the road, and suddenly, when they came to a certain place, spring into the air, and was told that at that particular point in the former year a pole had been across the road, and the sheep had jumped it when they came to the place.  Though no obstruction now existed, they leapt over an imaginary pole.

Rawnsley had a great admiration for the fell shepherds, considering that they must be direct descendants of the colonisers from the north:

“They are a fine race these Viking shepherds, as anyone may see who will go to a dog-trial in the Lake Country.  We have still amongst us the Michaels that Wordsworth knew and described.  And men of character they need to be:  They are called to face all storms upon the height.  They must find their way through blinding mist and over country that to the unexpert would mean death. .. Men too they are who are as silent as the silent places wherein their work lies.  Even at a shepherds' meeting they are monosyllabic... Men of long sight they are and of marvellous memory. I spoke just now of the memory of the Herdwick sheep – the memory of the master for 'kenning' place and face is more wonderful still.  To the ordinary holiday wanderer upon our fells, that a drove of sheep as they pass towards the intake can be thought of or recognised as individuals, appears an impossibility.  It is not so with the shepherds...”

Rawnsley's enthusiasm for the indigenous sheep may well have inspired Beatrix Potter, who in 1906 herself started a breeding programme for Herdwick sheep at Hill Top Farm, in Sawrey which she had bought a couple of years earlier. Thanks to the example of her shepherd, Tom Storey, she was to become a considerable expert on the breed, winning prizes at many shows; and just before her death she had the honour of being elected President of the Herdwick Sheep Breeders Association, though unfortunately she did not live long enough to take up the office.

Beatrix Potter, or Mrs. Heelis, as she was better-known to the farming community, who had lived through the slump and saw the start of the Second World War, died a few days before Christmas in 1943.  Concerned for the continuation of the traditional fell-farming way of life, in her Will she generously made a gift of no less than fifteen farms, and 4000 acres of land to the National Trust.  Possibly foreseeing that the pressures of mass-tourism, once the war was over, might threaten the traditional sheep-farming, she stipulated, as James Rebanks notes in his book, that her fell-farms should continue to raise, 'fell-going flocks of the pure Herdwick breed.'  Long may they continue to do so.

“No man is an island intire unto itself”. 

The three founders of the National Trust, Hardwicke Rawnsley, Octavia Hill and Robert Hunter, enjoyed a symbiotic relationship, each one bringing qualities to their visionary project which were not inherent in the other two.  And before them, William Wordsworth and John Ruskin whose ideas they developed and realised, among others.   Hardwicke Rawnsley paid homage to these two, his greatest inspirational models, in Ruskin & The English Lakes, published in 1902:

“All that is mortal of these two prophets of the Lord rests in lakeland earth:  Grasmere Churchyard and Coniston Churchyard are now individually consecrated; and pilgrims to either shrine will think of the double debt we owe; and hear not one but two clarion voices calling us, to lowlier reverence, loftier hopes; and love for men and Nature more devout.”

“They will hear, within the voices of these seers, a word of warning:  This little twenty-mile-square of hill and dale fed their souls with noblest passion, and lifted up their hearts to noblest heights:  Every year the quiet and the seclusion of it is threatened; every year its unspoiled beauty is in jeopardy.  No one who truly cares for the future of Great Britain, can think of this National Resting-ground robbed of its healing charm - its power to inspire and invigorate the thought of the present, or illustrate and enforce the thought of the past.  All that is mortal of Wordsworth rests in Grasmere Churchyard; all that is mortal of Ruskin lies at Coniston:  But we are false to the trust that they gave the tender earth of the countryside they loved so truly if we will not listen to their spirit words, and strive as well as we may to keep the land of their inspiration a heritage, for the helpful thought, the highest pleasure and the fullest peace of the generations yet to be.”

Hardwicke would I feel sure be very pleased to know that the National Trust, which he jointly founded and to which he devoted the last 25 years of his life, is indeed fulfilling that trust and preserving his beloved Lakeland as a resource and inspiration for our own and future generations.

***

Wordsworth, his first and lifelong inspiration was never far from Rawnsley's thoughts, and in 1915 in the darkest days of the War, Hardwicke revisited the poet's grave in Grasmere for a moment of quiet reflection:

At Wordsworth's grave, 7 April 1915

Beneath the yew by Rothay's freeborn stream
Filled with his music crystal as his heart
Today from all the world I go apart;
A hundred years rolled backward as in a dream
And all of you that doth immortal seem
Comes from the grave to bear a patriot's part;
Your healing clarion tuned by sonnet art
Sounds; and your great song-banners forward gleam.
Wordsworth, our Empire needs thee at this hour,
For now a second tyrant stands confest;
A ruthless wide-world dominating foe;
Oh, turn not mighty spirit to thy rest
But bid us forth as happy warriors go
With Freedom's inextinguishable power.

The following year the influenza epidemic struck and Hardwicke's wife Edith was among the victims.  Too ill himself even to attend her funeral, and worn out by the strain of his duties both as Hon Secretary of the National Trust and of his parish work in wartime, following her death, Hardwicke decided to retire from the ministry at Crosthwaite, and move 'over the Raise' to Grasmere.  Here at Allan Bank, the house which he and Edith had bought for their retirement, he lived out the last four years of his life.  Constitutionally incapable of living alone without a helpmeet, he raised some eyebrows by marrying his old friend and secretary, Eleanor Simpson only 18 months after Edith's death.  She survived him for 39 years, living here at Allan Bank until her death in 1959.

As I mentioned earlier, on their honeymoon in the West Country touring the National Trust possessions, Hardwicke dictated his last book, A Nation's Heritage, to her.   He had a gift for descriptive and often poetic prose.   Here is a short extract from this last book: 

He begins with a splendid account of Dinas Oleu, the very first property acquired by the Trust, as I mentioned earlier:

“The traveller who would see Barmouth, should visit it in the last week in May or first week in June.  The little grey town beneath the cliff is not yet overflowing with visitors, and he will not be troubled by litter on his visit to the famous Panorama Walk.  Even if there were no interesting National Trust possession at the end of his journey he would be well repaid by the marvel of the landscape as he passes down the estuary from Dolgelly. Leaving Dolgelly station we may see Hengwrt in the woodland to the right; the home that for the latter part of her life was the retreat of that tireless worker, Miss Frances Power Cobbe.  As the train stops at Penmaenpool we can view a square mile of sandy flat, covered with short sea grass and carpeted with myriads of shell-pink thrift flowers.  If the tide is flooding in, this same pink and green carpet is interlaced with glittering pools of water that seem as if some giant writer of hieroglyphs had been at work with blue paint.  If the tide is out we shall find rainbow-coloured sands, en-isled by grey-blue water with herons standing like silver sickles in the sun and companies of white gulls that jewel the fringes of the tideway.”

That enticing description still holds good today, except that there is no longer a train connecting Barmouth to Dolgelly.  In the late 1960's or very early 70's if I remember rightly, we rode in the last train  on that line, and then stood numbly watching the works train which followed, ripping up the track behind it, as it made the journey back to Dolgelly.  A heart-breaking moment for us railway enthusiasts.   The track was subsequently I believe made into a cycle path, but the ghost of that wonderful train still whistles down the line.

***

Rawnsley died before the full impact on society caused by the First World War had really become apparent, so he would not have seen that the traditional Lakeland way of life was threatened by the modern world.   

As the Albritton's comment, the Lake District is hardly a primaeval wilderness – there are traces of human habitation going back to the last Ice Age, there was a stone axe industry in Great Langdale, with a considerable export market, even to the continent of Europe.  The bronze age peoples cleared the woods around the peaks to make grazing space and dwellings, and the distinctive and hardy Herdwick sheep were introduced, possibly by the northern Viking settlers.  Mining of copper, lead and other minerals may date back to Roman times, and charcoal burning for smelting was carried on from mediaeval times, and at Whitehaven there was a flourishing trading port for coal and tobacco.  

None of this activity marred the natural landscape however.  The damage to the environment is unfortunately caused by the sheer weight of numbers of those who wish to visit and enjoy this beautiful scenery and way of life, and this is of course a major headache for the National Trust and the National Parks Commission and others, who seek to balance the public's right of access, with the preservation of the natural environment which they have come, to enjoy. 

There has apparently been talk of 'rewilding' parts of the Lake District, and to this end farmland has been bid up by the National Trust to prices too high for local farmers to compete.  This to the outside observer does seem to be a pity, when fell-farming has been for centuries a part of the rich tapestry of the Lakeland landscape. 

James Rebanks, 'The Herdwick Shepherd' as he is happy to be known, in The Shepherd's Life says it all, so I would like to quote a short passage from this moving account of his way of life.  The Napoleonic Wars, which put the Alps and the Continent off the tourist map, forced the leisured classes to seek the native mountains and lakes nearer home, and as a result, the Lakeland landscape suddenly became a major focus for writers and artists. 

As Rebanks says,

“From the start; this was, for visitors, a landscape of the imagination; an idealized landscape of the mind.  It became a counterpoint to other things; such as the Industrial Revolution... or a place that could be used to illustrate philosophies or ideologies.  For many, it was; from its 'discovery', a place of escape; where the rugged landscape and nature would stimulate feelings and sentiments that other places could not.  For many people, it exists to walk over, to look at, to climb, or paint, or write about, or simply dream about.  It is a place many aspire to visit or live in.”

But this popularity has its disadvantages also:  “Today”, Rebanks continues,

“16 million people a year come here (to an area with 43,000 residents) They spend more than a billion pounds every year here.  More than half the employment in the area is reliant upon tourism – and many of the farms depend upon it for their income by running B&Bs or other businesses.  But in some of the valleys 60 to 70 per cent of the houses are second homes or holiday cottages, so that many local people cannot afford to live in their own communities.”

***

This being so, it is surely one of the paramount duties of the National Trust as major landowners and guardians of this fragile landscape to support and encourage the indigenous people of the Lakes such as James Rebanks; to try to understand and fulfil their needs, in order to maintain the traditional farming way of life of this incomparable part of the world, and at the same time to avoid simply transforming the Lake District into a sort of glorified theme park.   I hope they can rise to the challenge and I do not envy them the task!

***

Hardwicke Rawnsley, the guardian of the Lakes, as he was known to so many, was a man of his time; a man born into the accepted class structure of the 19^th century, who could not have foreseen the effect that cheap travel and the consequent democratisation of mass tourism would have on the traditional symbiotic way of life here, unchanged for centuries, and which he so appreciated. 

I am often asked what my great-grandfather and the other Founders of the National Trust would think about the way it is being run today.   Of course there is no answer to that question – they could none of them have foreseen that as a result of the First and even more, the second World War, the old way of life and the established hierarchy of classes would disappear for ever – they could not have foreseen that the great country house feudal system would not survive, that the old families would by and large no longer be able to afford the upkeep of those houses, and that were it not for the National Trust stepping in with the Country House Scheme, many of our most beautiful and historic buildings would have fallen into disrepair and been demolished.  As it is, many have been saved by the Trust, restored and opened to a public who would never otherwise have had an opportunity of seeing, as it were, “how the other half lived.” 

The disadvantage of course is that these magnificent places have perforce become museums – rooms are roped off, one is not allowed to touch the furniture or to sit on the chairs, and this is often a bone of contention with visitors.  But it should not be forgotten that the entrance fees provide an essential source of income for the maintenance of these properties, and also for the upkeep of the thousands of acres of countryside owned by the National Trust and open to all, free of charge.

At this point I hope it is not inappropriate to congratulate the National Trust and Elaine Taylor the Curator on the way in which Allan Bank has been transformed, since it was taken in hand after the last tenants left, and made into the user-friendly, interactive community and family resource which it is today, buzzing with more life and activity than it ever can have had since Wordsworth and his growing family lived here as the first tenants at the beginning of the 19^th century.  To her I also owe a debt of gratitude for information and for a large number of images to illustrate this talk.

So to return once again to our starting point, I would like to end this evening with one of Hardwicke Rawnsley's sonnets on Grasmere – an old man renews his vigour by contemplating the lake, as Wordsworth had done before him.

Grasmere

Child of the tarn, the fountains, and the sun;
The hills that rear their beauty by the shore;
Thy calm enisléd water-plain once more
In tears I come to visit; e'en as one
Who with his hoard of strength is well-nigh gone,
Comes in great pain for wasting of his store;
Treading the thirsty wilds he trod before;
In trust to find where cooling waters run.
For I am aged; but from these rocks I take
A conscious touch of their immortal youth:
Feeble and worn; thy lake with freshness fills
My veins; invigorate of thy sinewy hills;
And wavering, lo; am wiser for the truth
That clothes thy mountains and that haunts thy lake. 

***

Hardwicke suffered a severe heart attack in the Spring of 1920, while attending a meeting of Convocation in York.  He returned to Allan Bank where, with typical energy, even though now bedridden, he insisted on carrying on business as usual. He died on 29^th May and was buried in Crosthwaite Churchyard with his first wife Edith. 

Eleanor lived on at Allan Bank for nearly 40 years as a widow, and joined her husband in Crosthwaite churchyard only in 1959.

Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley passed away nearly a century ago, but his spirit lives on in the Lakes, and his enduring memorial is of course the National Trust, which he helped to found; a cause for which he campaigned tirelessly and to which he devoted the major part of his life.  How delighted he would be to know that Grasmere Island, where it all began, is now secured for the nation.

As Wordsworth was Rawnsley's chief inspiration, perhaps he should have the last word, in the form of course, of a sonnet:

Valediction to the River Duddon

I thought of Thee; my partner and my guide;
As being past away.  Vain sympathies!
For; backward, Duddon!  As I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream; and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains; the Function never dies;
While we; the brave, the mighty; and the wise;
We Men; who in our morn of youth defied
The elements; must vanish; - be it so!
Enough; if something from our hands have power
To live; and act; and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go;
Through love; through hope; and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.

 

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