His output was enormous and his activity immense. The National Home Reading Union, the Pernicious Literature Committee, the Schools of St. George of Harpenden and of Keswick, the Rylands Library of Manchester, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, were a few of his subsidiary occupations. He was a Proctor in Convocation, he was Honorary Chaplain to the King, and he served as chaplain, with the rank of Colonel, to the Border Regiment of the Territorial Force. But perhaps his chief work was perhaps the founding of the National Trust for the Preservation of Places of Historic Interest and Natural Beauty. . . . .

It is no exaggeration to say—and it is much to say of anyone—that England would be a much duller and less heathy and happy country if he had not lived and worked.

(Times, 1920, 29 May, p. 11.)