Octavia Hill was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, in 1838, granddaughter of a sanitary reformer, but by 1840 her father, a corn merchant and former banker, was bankrupt and in mental collapse. Taught at home by her mother, she was painting glass for a cooperative guild at 13 and running a toy-making workroom of children from the ragged schools at 14. She had copied art for John Ruskin at 15, and in 1865 she persuaded him to buy the leases on three slum cottages in Marylebone for 750 pounds, promising a 5 percent return with any surplus spent on repairs and play space. Her model grew to 15 housing schemes and thousands of tenants, with weekly rent collection done only by women who also checked homes, health and schooling.
She evicted tenants for overcrowding or keeping children from school and opposed handouts without effort. In 1877 overwork, a broken engagement, a friend’s death and a public quarrel with Ruskin brought on a collapse, and Harriet Yorke became her lifelong companion. She campaigned to save Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields, coined the term Green Belt in 1875, and in 1893 founded the National Trust with Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley after their fight against a railway in the Lake District. She opposed women’s suffrage, council housing and state pensions, and the London County Council soon outgrew her methods. She died of cancer in 1912 at 73.
- The Bishop of London admitted he had never taken such a beating as her dressing down.
- She served as treasurer of the Kyrle Society, founded by her sister to bring art, music and open space to the poor.
- Tenant savings on repairs funded amenities such as wash houses and clubs.
- Her association of women rent collectors evolved into today’s Chartered Institute of Housing.
- The Charity Organisation Society she helped establish still operates as Family Action.
Leave a Reply