A terrace of artisans' cottages, probably no more than thirty years old, it had been in the grasp of resident landlords who had packed family after family into the tiny, insanitary dwellings. Visiting the tenants, Octavia Hill found the women far beyond caring; she vowed to restore their self-respect and to help them take responsibility for the state of their lives and their homes. The new arrangement gave each family two rooms instead of one, and the premises were transformed by cleaning, ventilation, clearance of the drains, repairs, and redecoration.
Bad tenants, habitual non-payers, were turned out, despite her deep misgivings. The key to her system was the weekly visit to collect rent.
This allowed the ladies who performed this job— Hill herself, assisted by Emma Cons and one or two other trusted lieutenants—to check upon every detail of the premises and to broaden their contact with the tenants, especially the children. In effect they were model social workers, always available if there were personal problems to be resolved.
In common with Josephine Butler and Florence Nightingale she believed that the model of the family and the ideal of the home should underlie all charitable work. Like Mary Carpenter , who argued against institutions and in favour of ' cottage homes ', Hill was a passionate advocate of small-scale solutions.
Hill's tenants were people dependent on casual or seasonal work, rather than the artisan class for whom model industrial dwellings, where tenants required references from employers, were built. Often she tried to find employment for tenants in and around the houses. For the children, outings to the countryside were organized, a tenants' meeting room was established behind Nottingham Place, and each pupil at the Hills' school was assigned a child from the buildings.
The space around the terrace was cleaned up as a playground. As soon as Paradise Place was transformed, she moved on; John Ruskin bought the freehold of Freshwater Place for her and the same process began again. Any surplus beyond the 5 per cent return was at the tenants' disposal guided by the landlady ; they could choose whether the money went towards a playground, sewing or singing classes, or another project.
In the former category, some such as Henrietta Barnett , Beatrice Webb , Catherine Courtney , and Emma Cons moved on to continue their own work elsewhere. Those who provided funds or practical support ranged from royalty to City financiers, from conscientious aristocrats to leading figures in the worlds of literature and the arts. Her support snowballed year by year. Soon interest came from overseas and from cities all over the country.
She tirelessly addressed meetings and interested groups to spread the word; her speaking voice, naturally musical, was one of her greatest assets. Beginning by overhauling the physical setting of her tenants' lives, ideally by rehabilitating their existing housing rather than building new blocks, Octavia Hill then turned to the improvement of other aspects of their daily life. Holidays and festivals, such as May day, were marked, and many of her projects included the erection of halls, decorated by artist friends, in which concerts and theatre performances could be held.
She made playgrounds out of the rough open spaces around the alleys and terraces, leading to campaigns for the renewal of disused central London burial-grounds as public open space and for rights of access to common land. The latter interest brought her into some of the early campaigns of the Commons Preservation Society , through which she met Robert Hunter , honorary solicitor of that body. She fought against development on precious open ground as London pushed inexorably outwards, failing to save Swiss Cottage Fields but winning her battle for Parliament Hill Fields.
Later she campaigned elsewhere in the country, including the Lake District, where she encountered the Revd Hardwicke Rawnsley , co-founder of the National Trust.
The Kyrle Society , founded by Miranda Hill in as a Society for the Diffusion of Beauty , but bearing the stamp of her sister's concerns and with her support, was established to bring colour into poor lives.
For a short period it expanded, setting up branches in many cities, and involved people such as William Morris and Walter Crane. Although it petered out, many of its principles were embodied in the founding articles of the National Trust , twenty years later. Octavia Hill's firm ideas on self-respect, with their echoes of Samuel Smiles's Self Help , published in , led to her involvement with the Charity Organization Society COS , a contentious body which deplored dependence fostered by kindly but unrigorous philanthropy.
For the COS , support to the poor had to be carefully targeted and efficiently supervised. Later in life, however, she began to think the COS line, as kept by its committee, was over-harsh. In , after eleven years of immersion in the world of housing and social reform, Hill collapsed and for many months was forced to withdraw from her work.
This episode, the gravest yet, finally demonstrated that she had to delegate many of her daily tasks to allow her to continue to manage her projects. There had been a number of causes for her collapse: the death of Jane Nassau Senior , a stalwart friend and experienced social worker who became the first woman poor-law inspector a position Hill had been offered, but had turned down, in November ; her short-lived engagement to another helper, the barrister and later MP Edward Bond ; and finally, an extraordinary attack on her in the pages of Fors Clavigera by John Ruskin.
This sprang from her unwillingness to let him make over the housing schemes in which he held a financial stake to the shaky St George's Company. Octavia was enlightened in many ways. She was not in favour of simply dispensing charity.
People were expected to pay their rents on time, and almost invariably did: "It has given them a dignity and glad feeling of honorable behavior which has much more than compensated for the apparent harshness of the rule," she felt Homes , 7. And they were encouraged to play their own part in their self-improvement, by making the most of the opportunities given to them. As suggested above, this system was, in fact, more demanding for Octavia than simply being a Lady Bountiful, and by she was worn out to the extent of collapse.
Besides hard work, several other factors were involved. She and Jeanie Nassau Senior had become close friends, and Jeanie's death in upset her terribly. So did the failure of her relationship with a fellow-worker, and an unfortunate falling out with Ruskin, who in that same year wanted to "make over the Marylebone property entirely to the St. George's Company, under Miss Hill's superintendence always. For her part, she confessed that she was worried about him trusting "the wrong people" and this only made matters worse between them.
This was the "difference of opinion" mentioned above; hurtfully, peevish in his own poor state of health, Ruskin printed the whole of their painful correspondence at this time in his Fors Clavigera , Book IV see Ruskin Southwark Red Cross Cottages, with hall and gardens, opened June , then and now.
Left: then. Right: now. Click on the images to enlarge them, and to find out more about this project. Nevertheless, she recovered from these various blows, and the years following her recovery were fruitful. Living with a companion in Larksfield, a cottage in the Sussex Weald, she continued to be involved in her housing schemes, especially at the request of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners in Southwark in south London, where she was able to have her say in the actual design of buildings like the Red Cross Cottages shown above.
This brought in fresh blood: the participants were "very young," she noted in a letter to her mother of 28 April , "I feel quite a veteran among them; and they are so sweet and humble and keen to learn about the things out of their old line of experience. I much delight in thinking one may link their young life with the houses, and hall, and garden in Southwark" Blue plaque for Octavia in Southwark, for establishing not only the housing but the army cadets.
Source: Octavia Housing. There is a plaque at Garbutt Place, where her work in housing reform began, as well. This entailed a good deal of travelling. Her experiences did nothing to persuade her that the state should become responsible for welfare, or that women should have more to do with central government: she was never a suffragette, although she was as keen as ever to promote women's participation in local affairs, and is often regarded as paving the way for their entry into the profession of paid social work.
The day after Octavia Hill's death from cancer on 13 August , there was a long obituary in The Times , followed by an "Appreciation" which praised her for her "[u]nflinching sincerity, earnestness, and concentration," her keen sense of responsibility, and many other good qualities. Her memorial service in Southwark Cathedral brought together representatives of many of the organisations she had had a hand in, and of the model communities she had set up.
It was the occasion for another tribute to her, this time by Canon Rawnsley, who described her as a "woman of foresight and just judgment; a woman with a tender heart In more recent times, Octavia Hill's work has been much admired — and also criticised. As for the former, the turning of her birthplace house into a museum, and the blue plaques in Marylebone and Southwark to commemorate her, show how well and warmly she is remembered by the general public.
What is more, as noted above, her work is supported to this day, and managed by the capable people at Octavia Housing. Her ideals are still very appealing and inspiring. As Anthony Wohl says, "her philosophy of house management contained much that was commendable, and her attitudes towards space, beauty, and play areas, and the improvement of people along with their homes supplied a much needed humane touch to housing reform" Its origins go back to Elberfeld, Germany.
A few years later in Octavia Hill began to campaign to protect the natural environment in and around London. She went on to help found the National Trust in The organisation still plays an important role in the maintenance of stately homes, parks and landscape in the UK.
Her publication The homes of the London poor has helped spread her ideas across the world. Towards the end of her life, interest in her way of working had declined because of the emphasis she placed on individual and small-scale social work,. Hill refused to acknowledge that significant government intervention might be needed to deal with major social problems such as poverty, housing and unemployment. Maurice told her that trying to do without rest was very self-willed but she took no notice.
A tiny woman all the family were diminutive with a heavy-browed head and great dark eyes, her indomitable personality was already fixed. Eventually her family forced her to go to Normandy on holiday, but a dangerous pattern of working until she collapsed was established which would periodically interrupt her work over the coming years.
He agreed to invest some of his inheritance in Octavia Hill's long-held dream, to establish improved housing for "my friends among the poor". She purchased a terrace of artisans' cottages just off Marylebone High Street , London , and a short walk from Regent's Park.
The premises were transformed by cleaning, ventilation, clearance of the drains, repairs, and redecoration. Octavia also recruited a team of women that included Henrietta Barnett , Catherine Potter and Emma Cons to help her with this venture.
She later argued that the most important aspect of her system was the weekly visit to collect rent. This allowed her and her colleagues to check upon every detail of the premises and to broaden their contact with the tenants, especially the children.
They also tried to find local and regular employment for the tenants. Norman Mackenzie has described the women as "welfare workers and moral guardians of their tenants". Octavia Hill had been influenced by the ideas expressed by Samuel Smiles in his book, Self-Help This resulted in her developing strong opinions about helping the poor. Tristram Hunt has pointed out: "Octavia always had an admirably broad conception of the lives of the inner-city poor and closely connected cultural philanthropy to social reform.
Octavia Hill became romantically attached to Edward Bond , a wealthy young man who was interested in her new housing project. Beatrice Webb later recalled: "I remember her well in the zenith of her fame At that time she was constantly attended by Edward Bond. Even our strong minds do not save us from tender feelings.
Companionship, which meant to him intellectual and moral enlightenment, meant to her 'Love'. This, one fatal day, she told him.
Let us draw the curtain tenderly before that scene and inquire no further. Webb added: "She left England for two years' ill health.
She came back a changed woman She is still a great force in the world of philanthropic action, and as a great leader of woman's work she assuredly takes the first place. But she might have been more, if she had lived with her peers and accepted her sorrow as a great discipline. Transplant them tomorrow to healthy and commodious homes, and they would pollute and destroy them. There needs, and will need for some time, a reformatory work which will demand that loving zeal of individuals which cannot be had for money, and cannot be legislated for by Parliament.
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