Octavia Hill
Encyclopedia
Octavia Hill was an English social reformer, whose main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Born into a family with a strong commitment to alleviating poverty, she herself grew up in straitened circumstances owing to the financial failure of her father. With no formal schooling, she worked from the age of 14 for the welfare of working people.
Hill was a moving force behind the development of social housing, and her early friendship with John Ruskin
enabled her to put her theories into practice with the aid of his initial investment. She believed in self-reliance, and made it a key part of her housing system that she and her assistants knew their tenants personally and encouraged them to better themselves. She was opposed to municipal provision of housing, believing it to be bureaucratic and impersonal.
Another of Hill's concerns was the availability of open spaces for poor people. She campaigned against development on existing suburban woodlands, and helped to save London's Hampstead Heath
and Parliament Hill Fields from being built on. She was one of the three founders of the National Trust
, set up to preserve places of historic interest or natural beauty for the enjoyment of the British public. She was a founder member of the Charity Organisation Society
(now the charity Family Action) which organised charitable grants and pioneered a home-visiting service that formed the basis for modern social work. She was a member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws in 1905.
Hill's legacy includes the large holdings of the modern National Trust, several housing projects still run on her lines, a tradition of training for housing managers, and the museum established by the Octavia Hill Society at her birthplace.
, a pioneer of sanitary reform. He had engaged Caroline as a governess for his children in 1832, and they were married in 1835, three years before Octavia was born in Wisbech
, Cambridgeshire
, her father's eighth daughter and ninth child. The family's comfortably prosperous life was disrupted by James Hill's financial problems and his mental collapse. In 1840 he was declared bankrupt. Caroline Hill's father gave the family financial support, and took on some of Hill's paternal role. Southwood Smith was a health and welfare reformer concerned with a range of social issues including child labour in mines and the housing of the urban poor. Caroline Hill held similar views on social reform, and her interest in progressive education, influenced by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
, and Southwood Smith's daily experience in his work at the London Hospital in the East End
inspired Octavia Hill's concern for the poorest in early Victorian London. She received no formal schooling: her mother educated the family at home.
The family settled in a small cottage in Finchley
, now a north London suburb, but then a village. Octavia Hill was impressed and moved by Henry Mayhew
's London Labour and the London Poor
, a book that portrayed the daily lives of slum dwellers. She was also strongly influenced by the theologian, Anglican priest and social reformer F. D. Maurice, who was a family friend. She began her work on behalf of London's poor by helping to make toys for Ragged school
children, and serving as secretary of the women's classes at the Working Men's College in Bloomsbury
in central London.
A co-operative guild providing employment for "distressed gentlewomen" accepted Hill for training in glass-painting when she was 13. When the work of the guild was expanded to provide work in toy-making for Ragged school children, she was invited, at the age of 14, to take charge of the workroom. The following year she began working in her spare time from the guild as a copyist for John Ruskin
in Dulwich Art Gallery and the National Gallery
. She was deeply aware of the dreadful living conditions of the children in her charge at the guild. Her views on encouraging self-reliance led to her association with the Charity Organisation Society (COS), described by Hill's biographer Gillian Darley as "a contentious body which deplored dependence fostered by kindly but unrigorous philanthropy … support to the poor had to be carefully targeted and efficiently supervised. Later in life, however, she began to think the COS line … was over-harsh."
Hill was short, like all her family, and indifferent to fashion. Her friend Henrietta Barnett wrote: "She was small in stature with long body and short legs. She did not dress, she only wore clothes, which were often unnecessarily unbecoming; she had soft and abundant hair and regular features, but the beauty of her face lay in brown and very luminous eyes, which quite unconsciously she lifted upwards as she spoke on any matter for which she cared. Her mouth was large and mobile, but not improved by laughter. Indeed, Miss Octavia was nicest when she was made passionate by her earnestness." Barnett also spoke of Hill's streak of ruthlessness. Gertrude Bell
called Hill despotic. Later in Hill's life, the Bishop of London, Frederick Temple
, encountered her at a meeting of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and wrote, "She spoke for half an hour … I never had such a beating in all my life."
.
Ruskin placed these houses, which were "in a dreadful state of dirt and neglect", under Hill's management. He told her that investors might be attracted to such schemes if a five per cent annual return could be secured. In 1866 Ruskin acquired the freehold of five more houses for Hill to manage in Freshwater Place, Marylebone. The Times
recorded, "The houses faced a bit of desolate ground occupied by dilapidated cowsheds and manure heaps. The needful repairs and cleaning were carried out, the waste land was turned into a playground where Mr. Ruskin had some trees planted."
After being improved the properties were let to those on intermittent and low incomes. A return of five per cent on capital was obtained as promised to Ruskin; any excess over the five per cent was reinvested within the properties for the benefit of the tenants. Rent arrears were not tolerated, and bad debts were minimal. As Hill said, "Extreme punctuality, and diligence in collecting rents, and a strict determination that they shall be paid regularly, have accomplished this." In consequence of her prudent management, Hill was able to attract new backers, and by 1874 she had 15 housing schemes with around 3,000 tenants.
Hill's system was based on closely managing not only the buildings but the tenants; she insisted, "you cannot deal with the people and their houses separately." She maintained close personal contact with all her tenants, and was strongly opposed to impersonal bureaucratic organisations and to governmental intervention in housing. In her view, "municipal socialism and subsidized housing" led to indiscriminate demolition, re-housing schemes, and the destruction of communities.
combined the weekly rent collection with checking every detail of the premises and getting to know the tenants personally, acting as early social workers. At first Hill believed, "Voluntary workers are a necessity. They are better than paid workers, and can be had in sufficient numbers." Later, she found it expedient to maintain a paid workforce. Her system required a large staff. Rent was collected on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Rent accounts were balanced in the afternoons and arrangements were made with contractors for repairs. On Thursdays and Fridays arrears were pursued, contractors' invoices paid, new tenancy lettings and tenants' moves organised.
If any of Hill's assistants had spare time, whether during normal working hours or in frequent voluntary after-hours working, it was used to promote tenants' associations and after-work and children's after-school clubs and societies. In 1859, Hill created the Southwark detachment of the Army Cadet Force
, its first independent unit, which gave training along military lines for local boys. Hill considered that such an organisation would be more like the "real thing" than such existing outfits as the Church Lads' Brigade
and therefore more attractive to young men "who had passed the age of make-believe". She invited a serving officer of the Derbyshire Regiment to set up the company, and such was its popularity that its numbers had to be capped at 160 cadets.
Hill's principles were summed up in an article of 1869: "Where a man persistently refuses to exert himself, external help is worse than useless." She was an outspoken critic of the principles of "outdoor relief
" or the Speenhamland system of poor relief as operated by various Poor Law Boards. Because these systems did not encourage recipients to work, she regarded them as "a profligate use of public funds." Under her methods, personal responsibility was encouraged. She insisted on dealing with arrears promptly; she appointed reliable caretakers; she took up of references on prospective tenants, and visited them in their homes; she paid careful attention to allocations and the placing of tenants, with regard to size of families and the size and location of the accommodation to be offered; and she made no rules that could not be properly enforced.
An American admirer described her as "ruling over a little kingdom of three thousand loving subjects with an iron scepter twined with roses." Although Hill drove her associates hard, she drove herself harder. In 1877, she collapsed and had to take a break of several months from her work. Darley ascribes a number of contributory causes: "chronic overwork, a lack of delegation, the death of her close friend Jane Senior, the failure of a brief engagement", as well as an attack on her by John Ruskin. The Hill family found a companion for her, Harriot Yorke (1843–1930). Yorke took on a great amount of the everyday work that had caused Hill's collapse. She remained her companion until Hill's death. A further palliative was the building of a cottage, at Crockham Hill
in Kent, where they could take breaks from their work in London.
She campaigned hard against building on existing suburban woodlands, and helped to save Hampstead Heath
and Parliament Hill Fields from development. She was the first to use the term "Green Belt" for the protected rural areas surrounding London. Three hills in Kent (Mariners Hill, Toys Hill
and Ide Hill
) which she helped to protect from development form part of the belt.
In 1876 Hill became the treasurer of the Kyrle Society, founded in that year by her eldest sister, Miranda
, as a "Society for the Diffusion of Beauty". Under the slogan "Bring Beauty Home to the Poor" it aimed to bring art, books, music and open spaces into the lives of the urban poor. For a short period it flourished and expanded, and although it declined after a few years, it was a template for the National Trust
, 20 years later.
Before that, however, Hill was engaged in a campaign in 1883 to stop the construction of railways from the quarries in the fells overlooking Buttermere
, in the English Lake District
, with damaging effect on the unspoilt scenery. The campaign was led by Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley
, who secured the support of Ruskin, Hill, and Sir Robert Hunter, solicitor to the Commons Preservation Society. From 1875 onwards, Hunter had been Hill's legal adviser on the protection of open spaces in London. Both he and Rawnsley, building on an idea put forward by Ruskin, conceived of a trust that could buy and preserve places of natural beauty and historic interest for the nation.
On 16 November 1893, Hill, Hunter and Rawnsley met in the offices of the Commons Preservation Society and agreed to launch such a trust. Hill suggested that it should be called "The Commons and Gardens Trust", but the three agreed to adopt Hunter's suggested title, the "National Trust". Under its full formal title, the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty was inaugurated the following year. The trust was concerned primarily with protecting open spaces and endangered buildings of historic interest; its first property was Alfriston Clergy House
and its first nature reserve
was Wicken Fen
.
, who handed over to her the management of their housing estates in several poor areas of south London. By the end of the nineteenth century, Hill's women workers were no longer unpaid volunteers but trained professionals. Hill's influence spread beyond the properties under her own control. Her ideas were taken up and copied, with her enthusiastic support, in continental Europe and the United States of America. Beatrice Webb
said that she "first became aware of the meaning of the poverty of the poor," while staying with her sister, who was a rent collector for Octavia Hill in the East End. Queen Victoria
's daughter, Princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt
, was taken incognito on a tour of some of Hill's properties, and she translated Hill's Homes of the London Poor into German. Among those whom Hill trained was her assistant and secretary, Maud Jeffery, who was later engaged by the Commissioners of Crown Lands to run new housing estates in London on Octavia Hill's lines. Even some local authorities, despite Hill's distrust, followed her model: some of the earliest examples of municipal council housing, at Kensington
and Camberwell
, were run on her lines, with the acquisition of working class houses, and their gradual improvement, without evictions or demolitions.
Despite her opposition to interference by national or local government in the provision of housing, Hill had to cope with the newly-created London County Council
and the involvement of the council and other local authorities in providing housing for the poor. In 1884 a royal commission on the housing of the working classes was set up, but the prime minister, W.E. Gladstone
, and his ministerial colleagues vetoed a proposal to include Hill among the members of the commission. The municipal authorities quickly surpassed her in the number of properties under their management. A.S. Wohl notes that in the 1880s Hill had about £70,000 worth of property under her management, and at the end of her career she was managing the dwellings of "perhaps three or four thousand people at the most." The London County Council, by contrast, had a budget of £1,500,000 for its programme of rehousing London's poor in 1901–02.
Hill was opposed to other reforms that came about in the early part of the twentieth century. She was against female suffrage on the grounds that "men and women help one another because they are different, have different gifts and different spheres". She also believed that provision of social services and old-age pensions by the government did more harm than good, sapping people's self-reliance.
Hill died from cancer on 13 August 1912 at her home in Marylebone
, at the age of 73.
.jpg)
When John Singer Sargent
's portrait of her was presented by her fellow-workers in 1898, Hill made a speech in which she said, "When I am gone, I hope my friends will not try to carry out any special system, or to follow blindly in the track which I have trodden. New circumstances require various efforts, and it is the spirit, not the dead form, that should be perpetuated. ... We shall leave them a few houses, purified and improved, a few new and better ones built, a certain amount of thoughtful and loving management, a few open spaces..." But, she said, more important would be "the quick eye to see, the true soul to measure, the large hope to grasp the mighty issues of the new and better days to come – greater ideals, greater hope, and patience to realize both."
The Horace Street Trust, founded by Hill, became a model for many subsequent housing associations and developed into the present trust that bears her name: Octavia Housing and Care. Today it owns several of the homes, including Gable Cottages, designed by Elijah Hoole, who worked with Hill for many years. Hill's determination to provide community space can still be seen in the shape of the Red Cross site in Southwark (1888), among others. The Octavia Hill Society website states that with a community hall, and soundly maintained attractive houses, Hill here anticipated the fundamental ingredients of town planning by some 15 years.
The Settlement Movement
(creating integrated mixed communities of rich and poor) grew directly out of Hill's work. Her colleagues Samuel
and Henrietta Barnett, founded Toynbee Hall
, the first university-sponsored settlement, which together with the Women's University Settlement (later called the Blackfriars Settlement) continues to serve local communities. Overseas, Hill's name is perpetuated in the Octavia Hill Association in Philadelphia, a small property company, founded to provide affordable housing to low and middle-income city residents.
Women who had trained under Hill formed the Association of Women Housing Workers in 1916. This later changed its name to the Society of Housing Managers in 1948. After merging with the Institute of Housing Managers in 1965, the society became the present day Chartered Institute of Housing
in 1994. The CIH is a professional body for those working in the housing profession in the UK and overseas. The training that Hill gave to Charity Organisation Society volunteers contributed to the development of modern social work, and COS continued to be instrumental in developing social work as a profession during the twentieth century. COS is still in operation today as the charity Family Action.
The Army Cadet Force, originated at Hill's instigation, today has over 40,000 members, offering progressive training to boys and girls aged 12 to 18 in various subjects.
In 1907, Parliament passed the first National Trust Act, enshrining the trust's permanent purpose and giving it powers to protect property for the benefit of the nation. The trust now looks after a wide range of coast, countryside and historic buildings. According to the trust's website, "Staff, volunteers and tenants are engaged daily in providing access to open spaces for people’s enjoyment, providing habitats for wildlife and in improving our environment – 'for ever, for everyone'."
Commemorations of Hill herself include a monument to her at a Surrey
beauty spot, on the summit of a hill called Hydon Ball (now owned by the National Trust). Shortly after her death, the family erected a stone seat there, from which walkers can enjoy views over the Surrey countryside. The Octavia Hill Society was set up in 1992 "to promote awareness of the ideas and ideals of Octavia Hill, her family, fellow workers and their relevance in today's society nationally and internationally". Under the society's auspices her birthplace at Wisbech has been turned into the Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum. In 1995, to mark the centenary of the National Trust, a new variety of rose, "Octavia Hill", was named in her honour.
Hill was a moving force behind the development of social housing, and her early friendship with John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
enabled her to put her theories into practice with the aid of his initial investment. She believed in self-reliance, and made it a key part of her housing system that she and her assistants knew their tenants personally and encouraged them to better themselves. She was opposed to municipal provision of housing, believing it to be bureaucratic and impersonal.
Another of Hill's concerns was the availability of open spaces for poor people. She campaigned against development on existing suburban woodlands, and helped to save London's Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath is a large, ancient London park, covering . This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band of London clay...
and Parliament Hill Fields from being built on. She was one of the three founders of the National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
, set up to preserve places of historic interest or natural beauty for the enjoyment of the British public. She was a founder member of the Charity Organisation Society
Charity Organization Society
The Charity Organization Societies also called the Associated Charities was a private charity that existed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries as a clearing house for information on the poor. The society was mainly concerned with distinction between the deserving poor and undeserving poor...
(now the charity Family Action) which organised charitable grants and pioneered a home-visiting service that formed the basis for modern social work. She was a member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws in 1905.
Hill's legacy includes the large holdings of the modern National Trust, several housing projects still run on her lines, a tradition of training for housing managers, and the museum established by the Octavia Hill Society at her birthplace.
Early years
Hill was the daughter of James Hill, corn merchant and banker, and his third wife, Caroline Southwood Smith. He had been widowed twice, and had six children (five daughters and a son) from his previous marriages. He had been impressed by the writings on education of Caroline Southwood Smith, the daughter of Dr Thomas Southwood SmithThomas Southwood Smith
Thomas Southwood Smith , English physician and sanitary reformer, was born at Martock, Somersetshire.While a medical student in Edinburgh he took charge of a Unitarian congregation. In 1816 he took his M.D...
, a pioneer of sanitary reform. He had engaged Caroline as a governess for his children in 1832, and they were married in 1835, three years before Octavia was born in Wisbech
Wisbech
Wisbech is a market town, inland port and civil parish with a population of 20,200 in the Fens of Cambridgeshire. The tidal River Nene runs through the centre of the town and is spanned by two bridges...
, Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire
Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...
, her father's eighth daughter and ninth child. The family's comfortably prosperous life was disrupted by James Hill's financial problems and his mental collapse. In 1840 he was declared bankrupt. Caroline Hill's father gave the family financial support, and took on some of Hill's paternal role. Southwood Smith was a health and welfare reformer concerned with a range of social issues including child labour in mines and the housing of the urban poor. Caroline Hill held similar views on social reform, and her interest in progressive education, influenced by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi was a Swiss pedagogue and educational reformer who exemplified Romanticism in his approach....
, and Southwood Smith's daily experience in his work at the London Hospital in the East End
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...
inspired Octavia Hill's concern for the poorest in early Victorian London. She received no formal schooling: her mother educated the family at home.
The family settled in a small cottage in Finchley
Finchley
Finchley is a district in Barnet in north London, England. Finchley is on high ground, about north of Charing Cross. It formed an ancient parish in the county of Middlesex, becoming a municipal borough in 1933, and has formed part of Greater London since 1965...
, now a north London suburb, but then a village. Octavia Hill was impressed and moved by Henry Mayhew
Henry Mayhew
Henry Mayhew was an English social researcher, journalist, playwright and advocate of reform. He was one of the two founders of the satirical and humorous magazine Punch, and the magazine's joint-editor, with Mark Lemon, in its early days...
's London Labour and the London Poor
London Labour and the London Poor
London Labour and the London Poor is a work of Victorian journalism by Henry Mayhew. In the 1840s he observed, documented and described the state of working people in London for a series of articles in a newspaper, the Morning Chronicle, that were later compiled into book form.-Overview:The...
, a book that portrayed the daily lives of slum dwellers. She was also strongly influenced by the theologian, Anglican priest and social reformer F. D. Maurice, who was a family friend. She began her work on behalf of London's poor by helping to make toys for Ragged school
Ragged school
Ragged Schools were charitable schools dedicated to the free education of destitute children in 19th century England. The schools were developed in working class districts of the rapidly expanding industrial towns...
children, and serving as secretary of the women's classes at the Working Men's College in Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury
-Places:* Bloomsbury is an area in central London.* Bloomsbury , related local government unit* Bloomsbury, New Jersey, New Jersey, USA* Bloomsbury , listed on the NRHP in Maryland...
in central London.
A co-operative guild providing employment for "distressed gentlewomen" accepted Hill for training in glass-painting when she was 13. When the work of the guild was expanded to provide work in toy-making for Ragged school children, she was invited, at the age of 14, to take charge of the workroom. The following year she began working in her spare time from the guild as a copyist for John Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
in Dulwich Art Gallery and the National Gallery
National gallery
The National Gallery is an art gallery on Trafalgar Square, London, United Kingdom.National Gallery may also refer to:*Armenia: National Gallery of Armenia, Yerevan*Australia:**National Gallery of Australia, Canberra...
. She was deeply aware of the dreadful living conditions of the children in her charge at the guild. Her views on encouraging self-reliance led to her association with the Charity Organisation Society (COS), described by Hill's biographer Gillian Darley as "a contentious body which deplored dependence fostered by kindly but unrigorous philanthropy … support to the poor had to be carefully targeted and efficiently supervised. Later in life, however, she began to think the COS line … was over-harsh."
Hill was short, like all her family, and indifferent to fashion. Her friend Henrietta Barnett wrote: "She was small in stature with long body and short legs. She did not dress, she only wore clothes, which were often unnecessarily unbecoming; she had soft and abundant hair and regular features, but the beauty of her face lay in brown and very luminous eyes, which quite unconsciously she lifted upwards as she spoke on any matter for which she cared. Her mouth was large and mobile, but not improved by laughter. Indeed, Miss Octavia was nicest when she was made passionate by her earnestness." Barnett also spoke of Hill's streak of ruthlessness. Gertrude Bell
Gertrude Bell
Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, CBE was an English writer, traveller, political officer, administrator, and archaeologist who explored, mapped, and became highly influential to British imperial policy-making due to her extensive travels in Greater Syria, Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, and Arabia. Along...
called Hill despotic. Later in Hill's life, the Bishop of London, Frederick Temple
Frederick Temple
Frederick Temple was an English academic, teacher, churchman and Archbishop of Canterbury from 1896 until his death.-Early life:...
, encountered her at a meeting of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and wrote, "She spoke for half an hour … I never had such a beating in all my life."
Housing for the poor
Parliament and many concerned reformers had been attempting to improve the housing of the working classes since the early 1830s. When Hill began her work, the model dwelling movement had been in existence for twenty years, royal and select committees had sat to examine the problems of urban well-being, and the first of many tranches of legislation aimed at improving working class housing had been passed. From Hill's point of view these had all failed the poorest members of the working class, the unskilled labourers. She found that their landlords routinely ignored their obligations towards their tenants, and that the tenants were too ignorant and oppressed to better themselves. She tried to find new homes for her charges, but there was a severe shortage of available property, and Hill decided that her only solution was to become a landlord herself. John Ruskin, who was interested in the co-operative guild, knew Hill from her work as his copyist and was impressed by her. As an aesthete and a humanitarian he was affronted by the brutal ugliness of the slums. In 1865, having inherited a substantial sum of money from his father, he acquired for £750 the leases of three cottages of six rooms each in Paradise Place, MaryleboneMarylebone
Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone....
.
Ruskin placed these houses, which were "in a dreadful state of dirt and neglect", under Hill's management. He told her that investors might be attracted to such schemes if a five per cent annual return could be secured. In 1866 Ruskin acquired the freehold of five more houses for Hill to manage in Freshwater Place, Marylebone. The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
recorded, "The houses faced a bit of desolate ground occupied by dilapidated cowsheds and manure heaps. The needful repairs and cleaning were carried out, the waste land was turned into a playground where Mr. Ruskin had some trees planted."
After being improved the properties were let to those on intermittent and low incomes. A return of five per cent on capital was obtained as promised to Ruskin; any excess over the five per cent was reinvested within the properties for the benefit of the tenants. Rent arrears were not tolerated, and bad debts were minimal. As Hill said, "Extreme punctuality, and diligence in collecting rents, and a strict determination that they shall be paid regularly, have accomplished this." In consequence of her prudent management, Hill was able to attract new backers, and by 1874 she had 15 housing schemes with around 3,000 tenants.
Hill's system was based on closely managing not only the buildings but the tenants; she insisted, "you cannot deal with the people and their houses separately." She maintained close personal contact with all her tenants, and was strongly opposed to impersonal bureaucratic organisations and to governmental intervention in housing. In her view, "municipal socialism and subsidized housing" led to indiscriminate demolition, re-housing schemes, and the destruction of communities.
Housing management
At the heart of the Octavia Hill system was the weekly visit to collect rent. From the outset, Hill conceived this as a job for women only. She and her assistants, including Emma ConsEmma Cons
Emma Cons was a British social reformer, educationalist and theatre manager.-Early life:Born in St. Pancras London, she trained as an artist and joined the Ladies' Co-operative Art Guild, London, run by Caroline Hill, mother of the future housing reformer and founder of the National Trust, Octavia...
combined the weekly rent collection with checking every detail of the premises and getting to know the tenants personally, acting as early social workers. At first Hill believed, "Voluntary workers are a necessity. They are better than paid workers, and can be had in sufficient numbers." Later, she found it expedient to maintain a paid workforce. Her system required a large staff. Rent was collected on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings. Rent accounts were balanced in the afternoons and arrangements were made with contractors for repairs. On Thursdays and Fridays arrears were pursued, contractors' invoices paid, new tenancy lettings and tenants' moves organised.
If any of Hill's assistants had spare time, whether during normal working hours or in frequent voluntary after-hours working, it was used to promote tenants' associations and after-work and children's after-school clubs and societies. In 1859, Hill created the Southwark detachment of the Army Cadet Force
Army Cadet Force
The Army Cadet Force is a British youth organisation that offers progressive training in a multitude of the subjects from military training to adventurous training and first aid, at the same time as promoting achievement, discipline, and good citizenship, to boys and girls aged 12 to 18 and 9...
, its first independent unit, which gave training along military lines for local boys. Hill considered that such an organisation would be more like the "real thing" than such existing outfits as the Church Lads' Brigade
Church Lads' and Church Girls' Brigade
The Church Lads' and Church Girls' Brigade is a Church of England youth organisation with branches in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Barbados, Bermuda, Kenya, South Africa, Newfoundland and St Helena...
and therefore more attractive to young men "who had passed the age of make-believe". She invited a serving officer of the Derbyshire Regiment to set up the company, and such was its popularity that its numbers had to be capped at 160 cadets.
Hill's principles were summed up in an article of 1869: "Where a man persistently refuses to exert himself, external help is worse than useless." She was an outspoken critic of the principles of "outdoor relief
Outdoor relief
This article refers to Britain's welfare provision after the 1601 Poor Law. For welfare programmes see Social securityAfter the passing of the Elizabethan Poor Law , outdoor relief was that kind of poor relief where assistance was in the form of money, food, clothing or goods, given to alleviate...
" or the Speenhamland system of poor relief as operated by various Poor Law Boards. Because these systems did not encourage recipients to work, she regarded them as "a profligate use of public funds." Under her methods, personal responsibility was encouraged. She insisted on dealing with arrears promptly; she appointed reliable caretakers; she took up of references on prospective tenants, and visited them in their homes; she paid careful attention to allocations and the placing of tenants, with regard to size of families and the size and location of the accommodation to be offered; and she made no rules that could not be properly enforced.
An American admirer described her as "ruling over a little kingdom of three thousand loving subjects with an iron scepter twined with roses." Although Hill drove her associates hard, she drove herself harder. In 1877, she collapsed and had to take a break of several months from her work. Darley ascribes a number of contributory causes: "chronic overwork, a lack of delegation, the death of her close friend Jane Senior, the failure of a brief engagement", as well as an attack on her by John Ruskin. The Hill family found a companion for her, Harriot Yorke (1843–1930). Yorke took on a great amount of the everyday work that had caused Hill's collapse. She remained her companion until Hill's death. A further palliative was the building of a cottage, at Crockham Hill
Crockham Hill
Crockham Hill is a village in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England. It is about south of Westerham, and Chartwell is nearby.The village street is on the line of a Roman road, the London to Lewes Way....
in Kent, where they could take breaks from their work in London.
Open spaces
Among Hill's concerns was that her tenants, and all urban workers, should have access to open spaces. She believed in "the life-enhancing virtues of pure earth, clean air and blue sky." In 1883, she wrote:She campaigned hard against building on existing suburban woodlands, and helped to save Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath
Hampstead Heath is a large, ancient London park, covering . This grassy public space sits astride a sandy ridge, one of the highest points in London, running from Hampstead to Highgate, which rests on a band of London clay...
and Parliament Hill Fields from development. She was the first to use the term "Green Belt" for the protected rural areas surrounding London. Three hills in Kent (Mariners Hill, Toys Hill
Toys Hill
Toys Hill is a hamlet in Brasted civil parish in the Sevenoaks district of Kent, England. It lies to the south of Brasted Chart, also in the parish. The hamlet is situated on the scarp slope of the Greensand Ridge, a high escarpment formed of Lower Greensand sandstone immediately north of the Weald...
and Ide Hill
Ide Hill
Ide Hill is a village within the civil parish of Sundridge with Ide Hill, in the Sevenoaks District of Kent, England. It stands on one of the highest points of the sandstone ridge about five miles south-west of Sevenoaks. Its name first appears on record in 1250 as Edythehelle. It is an eponymic...
) which she helped to protect from development form part of the belt.
In 1876 Hill became the treasurer of the Kyrle Society, founded in that year by her eldest sister, Miranda
Miranda Hill
Miranda Hill was an English social reformer. She worked closely, from 1891, with her more famous sister Octavia Hill on major housing reform projects in England. She was the daughter of James Hill, corn merchant and banker, and Caroline Southwood Smith, the daughter of Dr Thomas Southwood Smith,...
, as a "Society for the Diffusion of Beauty". Under the slogan "Bring Beauty Home to the Poor" it aimed to bring art, books, music and open spaces into the lives of the urban poor. For a short period it flourished and expanded, and although it declined after a few years, it was a template for the National Trust
National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty
The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, usually known as the National Trust, is a conservation organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
, 20 years later.
Buttermere
Buttermere is a lake in the English Lake District in North West England. The adjacent village of Buttermere takes its name from the lake. Historically within the former county of Cumberland, the lake is now within the county of Cumbria. It is owned by the National Trust, forming part of their...
, in the English Lake District
Lake District
The Lake District, also commonly known as The Lakes or Lakeland, is a mountainous region in North West England. A popular holiday destination, it is famous not only for its lakes and its mountains but also for its associations with the early 19th century poetry and writings of William Wordsworth...
, with damaging effect on the unspoilt scenery. The campaign was led by Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley
Hardwicke Rawnsley
Canon Hardwicke Drummond Rawnsley , was an English clergyman, poet, writer of hymns and conservationist, known as one of the co-founders of the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty...
, who secured the support of Ruskin, Hill, and Sir Robert Hunter, solicitor to the Commons Preservation Society. From 1875 onwards, Hunter had been Hill's legal adviser on the protection of open spaces in London. Both he and Rawnsley, building on an idea put forward by Ruskin, conceived of a trust that could buy and preserve places of natural beauty and historic interest for the nation.
On 16 November 1893, Hill, Hunter and Rawnsley met in the offices of the Commons Preservation Society and agreed to launch such a trust. Hill suggested that it should be called "The Commons and Gardens Trust", but the three agreed to adopt Hunter's suggested title, the "National Trust". Under its full formal title, the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty was inaugurated the following year. The trust was concerned primarily with protecting open spaces and endangered buildings of historic interest; its first property was Alfriston Clergy House
Alfriston Clergy House
Alfriston Clergy House in Alfriston, Polegate, East Sussex, England, was the first property to be acquired by the National Trust. It was purchased in 1896 for £10. The house lies adjacent to the Church of St. Andrew.-History:...
and its first nature reserve
Nature reserve
A nature reserve is a protected area of importance for wildlife, flora, fauna or features of geological or other special interest, which is reserved and managed for conservation and to provide special opportunities for study or research...
was Wicken Fen
Wicken Fen
Wicken Fen is a wetland nature reserve situated near the village of Wicken, Cambridgeshire, England.It is one of Britain's oldest nature reserves, and was the first reserve acquired by the National Trust, in 1899. The reserve includes fenland, farmland, marsh, and reedbeds...
.
Later years
The number of homes managed by Hill continued to grow. Although Ruskin had turned against her in a bout of mental instability, she found a new supporter, the Ecclesiastical CommissionersChurch Commissioners
The Church Commissioners is a body managing the historic property assets of the Church of England. It was set up in 1948 combining the assets of Queen Anne's Bounty, a fund dating from 1704 for the relief of poor clergy, and of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners formed in 1836...
, who handed over to her the management of their housing estates in several poor areas of south London. By the end of the nineteenth century, Hill's women workers were no longer unpaid volunteers but trained professionals. Hill's influence spread beyond the properties under her own control. Her ideas were taken up and copied, with her enthusiastic support, in continental Europe and the United States of America. Beatrice Webb
Beatrice Webb
Martha Beatrice Webb, Lady Passfield was an English sociologist, economist, socialist and social reformer. Although her husband became Baron Passfield in 1929, she refused to be known as Lady Passfield...
said that she "first became aware of the meaning of the poverty of the poor," while staying with her sister, who was a rent collector for Octavia Hill in the East End. Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
's daughter, Princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt
Princess Alice of the United Kingdom
The Princess Alice was a member of the British royal family, the third child and second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.Alice's education was devised by Albert's close friend and adviser, Baron Stockmar...
, was taken incognito on a tour of some of Hill's properties, and she translated Hill's Homes of the London Poor into German. Among those whom Hill trained was her assistant and secretary, Maud Jeffery, who was later engaged by the Commissioners of Crown Lands to run new housing estates in London on Octavia Hill's lines. Even some local authorities, despite Hill's distrust, followed her model: some of the earliest examples of municipal council housing, at Kensington
Kensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
and Camberwell
Camberwell
Camberwell is a district of south London, England, and forms part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is a built-up inner city district located southeast of Charing Cross. To the west it has a boundary with the London Borough of Lambeth.-Toponymy:...
, were run on her lines, with the acquisition of working class houses, and their gradual improvement, without evictions or demolitions.
Despite her opposition to interference by national or local government in the provision of housing, Hill had to cope with the newly-created London County Council
London County Council
London County Council was the principal local government body for the County of London, throughout its 1889–1965 existence, and the first London-wide general municipal authority to be directly elected. It covered the area today known as Inner London and was replaced by the Greater London Council...
and the involvement of the council and other local authorities in providing housing for the poor. In 1884 a royal commission on the housing of the working classes was set up, but the prime minister, W.E. Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
, and his ministerial colleagues vetoed a proposal to include Hill among the members of the commission. The municipal authorities quickly surpassed her in the number of properties under their management. A.S. Wohl notes that in the 1880s Hill had about £70,000 worth of property under her management, and at the end of her career she was managing the dwellings of "perhaps three or four thousand people at the most." The London County Council, by contrast, had a budget of £1,500,000 for its programme of rehousing London's poor in 1901–02.
Hill was opposed to other reforms that came about in the early part of the twentieth century. She was against female suffrage on the grounds that "men and women help one another because they are different, have different gifts and different spheres". She also believed that provision of social services and old-age pensions by the government did more harm than good, sapping people's self-reliance.
Hill died from cancer on 13 August 1912 at her home in Marylebone
Marylebone
Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone....
, at the age of 73.
Legacy and memorials
John Singer Sargent
John Singer Sargent was an American artist, considered the "leading portrait painter of his generation" for his evocations of Edwardian era luxury. During his career, he created roughly 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors, as well as countless sketches and charcoal drawings...
's portrait of her was presented by her fellow-workers in 1898, Hill made a speech in which she said, "When I am gone, I hope my friends will not try to carry out any special system, or to follow blindly in the track which I have trodden. New circumstances require various efforts, and it is the spirit, not the dead form, that should be perpetuated. ... We shall leave them a few houses, purified and improved, a few new and better ones built, a certain amount of thoughtful and loving management, a few open spaces..." But, she said, more important would be "the quick eye to see, the true soul to measure, the large hope to grasp the mighty issues of the new and better days to come – greater ideals, greater hope, and patience to realize both."
The Horace Street Trust, founded by Hill, became a model for many subsequent housing associations and developed into the present trust that bears her name: Octavia Housing and Care. Today it owns several of the homes, including Gable Cottages, designed by Elijah Hoole, who worked with Hill for many years. Hill's determination to provide community space can still be seen in the shape of the Red Cross site in Southwark (1888), among others. The Octavia Hill Society website states that with a community hall, and soundly maintained attractive houses, Hill here anticipated the fundamental ingredients of town planning by some 15 years.
The Settlement Movement
Settlement movement
The settlement movement was a reformist social movement, beginning in the 1880s and peaking around the 1920s in England and the US, with a goal of getting the rich and poor in society to live more closely together in an interdependent community...
(creating integrated mixed communities of rich and poor) grew directly out of Hill's work. Her colleagues Samuel
Samuel Augustus Barnett
Samuel Augustus Barnett was an Anglican clergyman and social reformer particularly associated with the establishment of the first university settlement, Toynbee Hall in east London in 1884....
and Henrietta Barnett, founded Toynbee Hall
Toynbee Hall
Toynbee Hall is a building in Tower Hamlets, East London which is the home of a charity working to bridge the gap between people of all social and financial backgrounds, with a focus on eradicating poverty and promoting social inclusion....
, the first university-sponsored settlement, which together with the Women's University Settlement (later called the Blackfriars Settlement) continues to serve local communities. Overseas, Hill's name is perpetuated in the Octavia Hill Association in Philadelphia, a small property company, founded to provide affordable housing to low and middle-income city residents.
Women who had trained under Hill formed the Association of Women Housing Workers in 1916. This later changed its name to the Society of Housing Managers in 1948. After merging with the Institute of Housing Managers in 1965, the society became the present day Chartered Institute of Housing
Chartered Institute of Housing
The Chartered Institute of Housing is the professional body for those working in the housing profession in the UK. It has a royal charter, gained in 1984. Currently CIH has over 21,000 members, mostly in the UK but also overseas, notably in Hong Kong...
in 1994. The CIH is a professional body for those working in the housing profession in the UK and overseas. The training that Hill gave to Charity Organisation Society volunteers contributed to the development of modern social work, and COS continued to be instrumental in developing social work as a profession during the twentieth century. COS is still in operation today as the charity Family Action.
The Army Cadet Force, originated at Hill's instigation, today has over 40,000 members, offering progressive training to boys and girls aged 12 to 18 in various subjects.
In 1907, Parliament passed the first National Trust Act, enshrining the trust's permanent purpose and giving it powers to protect property for the benefit of the nation. The trust now looks after a wide range of coast, countryside and historic buildings. According to the trust's website, "Staff, volunteers and tenants are engaged daily in providing access to open spaces for people’s enjoyment, providing habitats for wildlife and in improving our environment – 'for ever, for everyone'."
Commemorations of Hill herself include a monument to her at a Surrey
Surrey
Surrey is a county in the South East of England and is one of the Home Counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford. Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of...
beauty spot, on the summit of a hill called Hydon Ball (now owned by the National Trust). Shortly after her death, the family erected a stone seat there, from which walkers can enjoy views over the Surrey countryside. The Octavia Hill Society was set up in 1992 "to promote awareness of the ideas and ideals of Octavia Hill, her family, fellow workers and their relevance in today's society nationally and internationally". Under the society's auspices her birthplace at Wisbech has been turned into the Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum. In 1995, to mark the centenary of the National Trust, a new variety of rose, "Octavia Hill", was named in her honour.