Rawnsley exposed at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was an respire jock & rower.

Within December 1877 Rawnsley moved from East Anglia, where his father was the vicar, to become vicar of Wray Church touching Ambleside, Cumbria, in the Lake District. Within January 1878, he married a local girl. He became involved inside local campaigns to protect a countryside, & formed a Flow of any stream District Defence Society (late to get A Friends of the Flow of any stream District); more members included Tennyson, Browning, Ruskin and the Duke of Westminster. Within 1882 a young Beatrix Potter visited nearby Wray Castle with her parents. It entertained numbers of eminent guests, including Rawnsley. His views in preserving a natural beauty of Flow of any stream District got a lasting result Thrower, world health organization was already taken by owning the locality. He was a number one promulgated creator she met, & he took a great interest inside her drawings, & late encouraged her to publish her foremost book, The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

Within 1883 Rawnsley left Wray for St Kentigern's Church, Crosthwaite, just outside Keswick. A next season he & his married woman began organising classes inside metalwork and wood carving, which resulted around the establishment of a School of Industrial Art in Keswick, which remained operating until 1986.

Rawnsley was the hard advocate for the preservation of the Flow of any stream District from either rampant development, & intrinsically fought for the creation of the National Trust which can find & preserve wharehouses of natural beauty & historic interest for the united states. the Trust became a reality around 1895, with a assistance of Octavia Hill, a reformer, & Sir Robert Hunter, a solicitor. Until his demise, Rawnsley worked when Honorary Secretary to the Trust. He was responsible a campaign to raise money to choose Brandlehow Wood, the National Trust's number one choose. He wrote the total of 30,000 sonnets around his lifespan, the number of books on the Flow of any stream District & the life history of Ruskin.

When 34 years at Crosthwaite he retired to Grasmere, where, within 1915, he had bought Allan Bank, a home where Wordsworth had lived for three years. He died there inside 1920, and is buried at Crosthwaite. He bequeathed Allan Bank to the National Trust.