Born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, Octavia Hill was the eighth daughter of James Hill, a corn merchant, and his third wife, Caroline. Hill was born into a progressive family; her grandfather was a campaigner on public health, while her father was a follower of the social reformer Robert Owen, and founded the radical newspaper the Star in the East. It was dedicated to telling “the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth”. The publication, which his wife helped to run, attacked corruption and self-interest groups. In 1840 Hill’s father was declared bankrupt and soon afterwards he suffered a nervous breakdown. The family moved to Finchley, north of London, where Caroline raised her children alone.
Both Octavia and her sister Miranda undertook artistic training offered by a philanthropist named Miss Wallace, who had patented a new method of painting on glass. She offered to train poor ladies in the art to provide employment. In 1852 this led to the formation of the Ladies Guild, a crafts workshop run on cooperative principles for unskilled women and girls. Hill’s mother was appointed manager and book-keeper for the Guild.[1]
The family moved to Fitzroy Square, and here Hill witnessed first-hand the abject poverty, misery and desolation of London life. At the age of thirteen she learnt to keep accounts and was hired to manage the children from the Ragged School who were employed as toymakers by the Ladies Guild. She was horrified at the poverty the ‘dear dear children’ experienced. When the Ladies Guild came to an end her friend, the theologian F. D. Maurice, offered Hill employment at the Working Men’s College, firstly teaching women arithmetic, then a job as administrative secretary with a salary of £26 per year.[2]
Hill turned her attentions to the housing of the poor, who lived in damp, over-crowded slums. She believed that everyone should have well maintained accommodation, however small, with caring neighbours. She started work in Marylebone. The writer and critic, John Ruskin, who had been training her as a copyist in the London galleries, lent her the money to buy the leasehold of Paradise Place, three dilapidated cottages in a court off Marylebone High Street. However, he insisted that they should give a return of 5% on capital. Hill made essential repairs, cleaned out the houses, repaired the drains and rented them to tenants whom she felt were ‘deserving’. She collected the rent herself and insisted that it should be paid promptly every week. Tenants had to look for and find work, and keep the property clean and tidy. If not, they would be evicted. Her intention was to get to know each tenant individually, to develop their self-respect and trust in their own capabilities.
Following the success of this first experiment, Ruskin bought the freehold of Freshwater Place in 1866, and the whole process started again.[3] In 1884 Hill was asked by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to manage several of their properties in Deptford and Southwark. She persuaded the Commissioners that where small buildings had been replaced by blocks of flats, open spaces for recreation must be provided. They gave her a plot of land on Red Cross Way in Southwark.[4] Resisting calls for dense housing, she designed and built for quality, not quantity. Hill appealed in The Times for funds to build a community hall and a few cottages on the site of a dilapidated factory.[5] Named Red Cross Hall, she endowed and invested it in a Trust.[6] Two sets of houses were built, with strict tenancy conditions. The first houses, Red Cross Cottages, were followed by White Cross Cottages in nearby Ayres Street. These half-timbered terraced dwellings were influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement and are now are listed buildings. The houses were accompanied by a garden, which was designed to be ‘an open-air sitting room’, and a children’s playground. Hill developed a community run by the tenants themselves, providing adult classes, lectures, entertainments and clubs. Later she started the Southwark Volunteer Cadet Corps in the centre.
The rents from the properties Hill managed were initially collected by volunteers, who were middle-class ladies like herself, but later, as her portfolio grew, she employed professionally trained paid staff. In 1916 this became the Association of Women Housing Workers and is now the Chartered Institute of Housing. Octavia produced annual reports on all her properties and wrote regular Letters to Fellow Workers.
Hill’s reforming zeal was a continuation of her parents’ and grandfather’s work and ideals. Although she was not wealthy, she had excellent contacts whom she involved in her work and projects. She hated the kind of charity or welfare that she believed created dependence, or that came from state or public funds. Instead, she brought about change by personal example. With her ventures, Hill opened up new careers for women, fought against poverty and disease, and tried to bring peace and beauty into the lives of ordinary people. Furthermore, her work on Open Spaces and the Commons Preservation Society led to the creation of the National Trust.
By Brenda Davies, a U3A Shared Learning Project researcher for the Citizens Project.
[1] Gillian Darley, Octavia Hill: A Life, p. 41
[2] Gillian Darley, Octavia Hill: A Life, p. 54
[3] Gillian Darley, Octavia Hill: A Life, p. 100
[4] E Moberly Bell, Octavia Hill, p. 181
[5] E Moberly Bell, Octavia Hill, p. 191
[6] The Times, March 12, 1887, p. 190
Octavia Hill, Homes of the London Poor (Dodo Press)
William Thomson Hill, Octavia Hill: Pioneer of the National Trust and Housing Reformer
