49 Facts About Octavia Hill

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.

Octavia Hill 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.

Octavia Hill was opposed to municipal provision of housing, believing it to be bureaucratic and impersonal.

Octavia Hill campaigned against development on existing suburban woodlands, and helped to save London's Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields from being built on.

Octavia Hill 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.

Octavia Hill was a founder member of the Charity Organisation Society which organised charitable grants and pioneered a home-visiting service that formed the basis for modern social work.

Octavia Hill was a member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws in 1905.

Octavia Hill was born in Bank House, South Brink, Wisbech, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, the daughter of James Hill, a corn merchant, former banker and follower of Robert Owen, and his third wife, Caroline Southwood Smith.

James Hill had been widowed twice, and had six surviving children from his two previous marriages; Octavia was her father's eighth daughter and tenth child.

Octavia Hill had been impressed by the writings on education of his future wife, the daughter of Dr Thomas Southwood Smith, a pioneer of sanitary reform.

Octavia Hill engaged Caroline as a governess to his children in 1832, and they were married in 1835.

Caroline Octavia Hill's father gave the family financial support, and took on some of Octavia Hill's paternal role.

Octavia Hill received no formal schooling: her mother educated the family at home.

Octavia Hill was strongly influenced by the theologian, Anglican priest and social reformer F D Maurice, who was a family friend.

Octavia Hill 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.

Octavia Hill was deeply aware of the dreadful living conditions of the children in her charge at the guild.

Octavia Hill was short, like all her family, and indifferent to fashion.

Octavia Hill 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.

Octavia Hill's mouth was large and mobile, but not improved by laughter.

Indeed, Miss Octavia Hill was nicest when she was made passionate by her earnestness.

When Octavia 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.

Octavia Hill found that their landlords routinely ignored their obligations towards their tenants, and that the tenants were too ignorant and oppressed to better themselves.

Octavia Hill 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.

The obituary for Octavia Hill, published by The Times 15 August 1912 quoted that Hill herself confessed "not many men would have trusted that the undertaking would succeed".

Octavia Hill told her that investors might be attracted to such schemes if a five percent annual return could be secured.

In 1866 Ruskin acquired the freehold of five more houses for Octavia Hill to manage in Freshwater Place, Marylebone.

Octavia 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" and she strongly believed that good quality, well-managed homes make for happier, healthier lives.

Octavia Hill maintained close personal contact with all her tenants, and was strongly opposed to impersonal bureaucratic organisations and to governmental intervention in housing.

At the heart of the Octavia Hill system was the weekly visit to collect rent.

In 1859, Octavia Hill created the Southwark detachment of the Army Cadet Force, its first independent unit, which gave training along military lines for local boys.

Octavia 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".

Octavia Hill 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.

Octavia Hill insisted on dealing with arrears promptly; she appointed reliable caretakers; she took up on references of 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.

Octavia Hill turned these estates into model properties, which still paid a return on investment.

The Octavia Hill family found a companion for her, Harriot Yorke.

Octavia Hill campaigned hard against building on existing suburban woodlands, and helped to save Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields from development.

Octavia Hill was the first to use the term "Green Belt" in 1875 for the protected rural areas surrounding London and prevent the city sprawling out.

In 1876 Octavia 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".

Octavia 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".

The number of homes managed by Octavia Hill continued to grow.

Octavia Hill's influence spread beyond the properties under her own control.

Octavia Hill's ideas were taken up and copied, with her enthusiastic support, in continental Europe and the United States of America.

Octavia Hill was opposed to other reforms that came about in the early part of the twentieth century.

Octavia Hill died from cancer on 13 August 1912 at her home in Marylebone, at the age of 73.

Women who had trained under Octavia Hill formed the Association of Women Housing Workers in 1916.

The training that Octavia 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.

Commemorations of Octavia Hill include a monument to her at a Surrey beauty spot, on the summit of a hill called Hydon Ball.

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".

In 1995, to mark the centenary of the National Trust, a new variety of rose, "Octavia Hill", was named in her honour.