Teign u3a great Lives 2014/15

OCTAVIA HILL

Octavia Hill was a prolific letter writer and essayist, as were her family and friends, and fortunately most of these papers have survived and been published. Shortly before her death, one of her sisters persuaded her, with much difficulty, to agree that a public account of her life would be necessary.

The reason her family had difficulty in persuading her to agree was because Octavia never understood the esteem she was held in by many people. As Sir Reginald Rowe stated in his foreword to the biography by E. Moberly Bell “she was incapable of self-admiration …. she was surprised that people should think so highly of her”.

Octavia, or Ockey as she was known to her family and friends, was born on 3rd December 1838. She was the 8^th daughter of James Hill – hence 'Octavia' and her mother was Caroline Southwood Smith, daughter of the sanitary reformer Dr Southwood Smith. Caroline was the 3^rd wife of James, and he needed someone to look after the 6 children he already had from his first two wives. Caroline gave him 5 more children – Miranda, Gertrude, Octavia, Emily and Florence.

Both of Octavia's parents had a very strong work ethic, and all the children grew up accepting this as normal. Octavia in particular had a very strong belief in work, and in fact did make herself quite ill through working too hard and taking no leisure.

Despite his hard work and many economies, James Hill became bankrupt in 1840, and this resulted in the breakup of the family. The children of the first two wives went to their maternal grandparents and Caroline's father – Dr Southwood Smith adopted Gertrude. He also provided a cottage in Epping for the remainder of the family – James and Caroline Hill, Miranda and Octavia and Emily was born here later. They then moved around and had another daughter Florence in 1843, and Mr Hill worked hard to try to restore their fortunes, but his increasing ill health and depression finally resulted in his having a complete mental and physical breakdown. He never again managed to support or take any responsibility for his family. Fortunately, Dr Southwood Smith took on responsibility for the family.

Octavia was very close to her sister Gertrude, and when she visited her at her grandfather’s house, the two girls would often copy reports or articles on sanitary reform, and Octavia remembered much of what she had copied, and used this later for the benefit of her tenants. Dr Southwood Smith also entertained and the girls were allowed to join in the adult discussion which took place, and this again gave them, and Octavia in particular, a breadth of knowledge and understanding which was unusual for a girl of her age.

In 1851, when Octavia was 13 years old, a Ladies Co-operative Guild was formed. Caroline Hill became the manager of it, and Octavia and her sister Miranda went to work there. They produced “consolidated glass”, which was painted glass which was then consolidated on the back by a hard composition, and this allowed it to bear weight. At this time Octavia also became very involved with the Christian Socialists and regularly attended Lincolns Inn Chapel, where Frederick Maurice preached, and he became very influential in Octavia's life. The Christian Socialists were instrumental in changing attitudes towards the lower classes and Octavia became deeply involved in their doctrine, as working at the Guild had really opened her eyes to the problem and misery of the working classes.

Later on, the Guild took another lot of co-operative work – making toy furniture – which had been started up to employ children from the Ragged School. Octavia was invited to take charge of this, and this she did. She learnt to choose the shape and colour of each piece of furniture, assign the various processes to each child, price each piece, see it packed and sent to the showroom. She also learnt to keep the accounts and pay the children. All this at the age of 14 years.

Another big influence on Octavia was Ruskin – she had read his book “Modern Painter” and thought it and Ruskin perfect. In his turn, he was interested in the Guild, and came to visit them at work, and he was particularly interested in Octavia. He decided he would teach her, and gave her work to do. She enjoyed this very much, and wished she could spend more time on that rather the work at the Guild. However, she needed to earn her living so did the work for Ruskin in her own time.

At this time, she was living in furnished rooms with her mother and sisters, and the burden of providing for the family fell more on more on her. She had also taken upon herself to responsibility for her father’s debts, even though he was a discharged bankrupt. So, she took on more work, mainly teaching, and was working an 11 hour day at her paid work but still seeking buyers for her furniture, suitable openings for her children, visiting her father and generally being the mainstay of the family. She felt she was wasting her artistic gifts, and felt out of sympathy with her family, which caused her distress as they were a devoted and loving family, and eventually she had a breakdown. Her illness was severe and recovery took some time, but it gave her the time to take a hard look at her life and where she was going. She still had bouts of being unwell, and needed to take regular holidays and days off.

When she recovered, having thought hard about her life, she came to the conclusion that she could not make the toy furniture business pay, so with great reluctance she closed it, although remained involved with the children. She was still doing work for Ruskin and also still working at the Working Men’s College. When she suggested leaving there, they told her they could not possibly manage without her.

In 1861, when Octavia was 23, her grandfather, Dr Southwood Smith died, and Octavia felt she had to be the 'man' of the family and look after everyone. Her mother was devastated at the loss of her father, as she been very close to him, so Octavia felt she need to support her too. At this time, everyone in the family was involved in teaching, Octavia being head of school for the daughters of artisans and tradesmen in the morning, and teaching private pupils in the afternoon. She was also still working for Ruskin, secretary of the Working Men's College and teaching drawing at the College, at Portman Hall and also at Nottingham Place School – a school for the education of girls – so much for slowing down!

As she and her sisters were much in demand for private teaching, Octavia decided to start up her own school. By autumn 1862, the school had six boarders and eight day girls. The School was a great success and the family received many requests to take on more pupils. By 1866 Miranda had given up her own school and took charge of Nottingham Place School (the Hills School), but by then Octavia had begun the work which was to be the most important of her life – her social work. Whilst at Nottingham Place School, she held a weekly meeting for mothers who needed help – teaching them how to cut and make clothes, for example. When one of these mothers fainted from exhaustion, Octavia took her home. There she saw the damp unhealthy basement where she lived.

It was not easy to find good accommodation, especially with children, as landlords did not like them. Octavia had been thinking for some time of becoming a landlord herself, and, thanks to Ruskin, this she did. Ruskin had been left a considerable amount of money by his father and he asked Octavia's advice about what to do with it. She did not answer immediately, although she wanted it to be used for property to rent to poor people, but mulled it over for a couple of days. She then wrote to Ruskin outlining her idea, and suggesting he buy property with his money and let it out to the poor. He replied by return of post!

It took some time to find suitable property – the nicer areas would not accept 'the poor'. Eventually she found three properties in Paradise Place, a misnomer by all accounts, in Marylebone, quite near to Nottingham Place, where they lived and had the school. Ruskin wanted the venture to pay for itself – he suggested 5% on his capital, not because he wanted the money, but that he hoped others would follow if they believed they could make money. Octavia agreed, but because she felt things should pay for themselves, rather than that a profit should be made. A year after the purchase of Paradise Place, Ruskin bought a row of dilapidated cottages, with a big yard out the front, which Octavia hoped to make into a play area.

Octavia soon had the properties cleaned and repaired, but the tenants did not change their bad and unclean habits. Octavia kept the communal areas clean in the hope the tenants would come to see how much nicer it was being clean. Octavia's way of dealing with people was to get to know them as individuals and to try to help them as one friend to another. She did this with her tenants – she visited each tenant every week to collect the rent, and would not allow any arrears. The tenants had previously not been chased for arrears, and they did not at first believe that Octavia meant it when she said they would be evicted if they became two weeks in arrears of rent. The tenants were often drunk and abusive when she called to collect the rent, or would lock her in with them and not want to let her out until she agreed with whatever their issue was. However, Octavia stood her ground – she remained unmoved and silent until they ran out of steam, and then just re-stated her case quite calmly and quietly, and the tenant gave in! If the tenant did fall into arrears, she would immediately take steps to evict them, and they soon learned that it was better for them to pay their rent on time. Octavia actually found this quite hard to do – she cared little for money herself, and it was far more in her nature to let them off if they were having a hard time. However, she did stick rigidly to her rules, because she did not want a bad example set to other tenants. The hostility of the tenants gradually softened, and they got used to seeing her week in week out going all alone into these not very nice places, and admired her courage in doing so alone when previous rent collectors had gone around in pairs!

Once she had established herself with the tenants, she talked to them about her plans. She told them she had a specific amount of funds to effect repairs and decoration of the property, and that if there should be any surplus she would be happy to use it for their own benefit – providing them with such things as washing stools, cupboards, safes etc. The tenants soon realised that if they stopped vandalising the property and looked after it instead, they would benefit personally, and they organised bands of the older children (girls of course!) to clean for 6pence a week. This induced a great pride in the girls, which was of benefit to everyone.

Her next project was to stop the overcrowding – often big families were living in only one room. She tried to persuade them to take on an extra room, and made the rent difference so little as to make it worth their while, but many still resisted this extra cost, as they were used to be crowded together. Octavia did not coerce existing tenants, but any new tenants were not allowed to take a room which Octavia considered would result in them being overcrowded. As time went by, the tenants came to respect Octavia's judgement, and her method of being silent and re-stating her case proved difficult to resist in the end.

Eighteen months after the purchase of the houses, Octavia had succeeded in her goal – the playground was up and running at the cottages, the scheme was financially sound, she had paid the 5% on the capital from Ruskin, her tenants were flourishing, there were hardly any rent arrears, and during the severe winter of 1867-68, her tenants needed no extra help at all.

This bad winter took a great toll on the poor, and in 1868 a society called The London Association for the Prevention of Pauperisation and Crime was started, and inevitably Octavia became very involved in this – in fact she contributed two thirds of its expenses.

The society met a lot of opposition, but Octavia in her own fashion just carried on anyway, and soon won people round when they saw how well her ideas for helping the poor worked. The main thrust of her plan was that people claiming parish relief or 'dole' would help themselves and each other, and that those providing the alms would 'promote mutual help and mutual knowledge and a happy intercourse between neighbours'. The church took a long time to get on board, but eventually the scheme was adopted widely, even though the church continued to throw spanners in the works.

All this social work made Octavia's reputation grow, and she found this quite alarming. She felt she was 'doing what was right', and could see no reason for people to think of her as anybody special – this is also the reason she was reluctant to have her papers published.

As time progressed, Octavia was given more properties to manage by different people who were impressed by what she had achieved, and she spent many happy years. Her next project was to become very involved in trying to find and retain open green spaces for people living in London – when she heard that Swiss Cottage Fields, where she had played as a child, were to be built on, she lost no time in contacting influential people to help save the fields as a recreation area for the public. The cost was 10,000 guineas, and just before she had managed to raise that sum, the owner saw the profit to be made from development slipping away, so he withdrew his offer to sell them the fields and went ahead with the development. This was a blow for Octavia, but as usual she did not give up her plans, and spent much of her time identifying different green areas that could be used for recreation. A lot of these were disused graveyards, and this did raise some opposition, but in true Octavia fashion, she overcame them.

Octavia then became involved in managing properties – this time for many different people, as her abilities in this field had become very well known, and her opinion was sought on many housing issues, including 48 houses in Deptford and then some Courts in Southwark owned by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, and in January 1885 took on the management of a further 85 more houses in Deptford. She also bought herself the first ever properties she had managed in Paradise Place, as Ruskin’s agent wanted to sell them due to Ruskin’s insanity. Many of the new properties she took on had the same sort of problems she had encountered when she first started, but she again won everyone over and improved the conditions for everyone.

As mentioned, Octavia had always been passionate about open spaces, and she found it difficult when she first started work with the children to make people understand that their recreation and need for open spaces was as important as education, work and good housing.

She therefore started up a committee called the Open Spaces Committee of the Kyrle Society, and its purpose was to keep public opinion alive to the importance of keeping open spaces and to raise money for the purchase of such places. She was also involved in another committee called the Commons Preservation Society, and they dealt with the legal aspect of protecting the public's rights to open spaces. Again, as ever, Octavia worked very hard to make these a success, and gradually their work began to tell and public opinion began to change and people became alive to their responsibilities to keep these spaces.