Name/TitleOctavia Hill: a Biography
EditionSecond Impression (corrected)
MakerMoberly Bell, Enid
Maker RoleAuthor
About this objectHardback illustrated book with green covers titled 'Octavia Hill: A Biography' by E. Moberly Bell. Includes a foreword by Sir Reginald Rowe, President of the National Federation of Housing Societies. The contents are:
- Foreword
- Introduction
I. Victorian Childhood
II. London - Agonies and Exultations
III. Difficult Days
IV. New Friends
V. The Nottingham Place School
VI. Beginning of Housing
VII. The Tenants
VIII. Interlude
IX. The Charity Organization Society
X. Training of Workers
XI. Growing Responsibilities
XII. Open Spaces
XIII. A Long Rest
XIV. Housing Again
XV. Southwark - A Happy Relationship
XVI. Poverty and Independence
XVII. Settlements
XVIII. Commons, Footpaths and the National Trust
XIX. Planning the Future
XX. Rate Aided Building and the Poor Law
XXI. Last Years
XXII. The Testament
- Index
Medium and MaterialsOrganic, board and paper
MeasurementsH: 189 x W: 130 x D: 23 mm
Date Made1942-43
PeriodMid 19th - early 20th century
Place MadeEngland, London
Place NotesConstable and Co. Lt, 10-12 Orange Street, London W.C.2.
PublisherConstable and Co. Ltd
Publication Date1942
Publication PlaceEngland, London
Subject and Association Descriptionhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octavia_Hill:
Octavia Hill (3 December 1838 – 13 August 1912) was an English social reformer and founder of the National Trust. Her main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Born into a family of radical thinkers and reformers with a strong commitment to alleviating poverty, she herself grew up in straitened circumstances owing to the financial failure of her father's businesses. Home educated by her mother, she worked from the age of 14 for the welfare of working people.
Hill was a moving force behind the development of social housing, and her early friendship with John Ruskin enabled her to put her theories into practice with the aid of his initial investment. She 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. She was opposed to municipal provision of housing, believing it to be bureaucratic and impersonal.
Another of Hill's concerns was the availability of open spaces for poor people. She campaigned against development on existing suburban woodlands, and helped to save London's Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields from being built on. She 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. She was a founder member of the Charity Organisation Society (now the charity Family Action) which organised charitable grants and pioneered a home-visiting service that formed the basis for modern social work. She was a member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws in 1905.
Hill's legacy includes the large holdings of the modern National Trust, several housing projects still run on her lines, a tradition of training for housing managers, and the Octavia Hill Birthplace House established by the Octavia Hill Society at her birthplace in Wisbech. She was key in pushing for the creation of what is now known as the Army Cadet Force, after seeing the success it was having in schools who maintained detachments of the Officers' Training Corps (now known as the Combined Cadet Force). [continues].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Frederic_Moberly_Bell:
Charles Frederic Moberly Bell (2 April 1847, Alexandria – 5 April 1911, London) was a British journalist and newspaper editor. ... In 1875, Moberly Bell married Ethel Chataway. The couple had six children, two sons and four daughters. One of their daughters, Enid (1881-1967), later became the founding headmistress of Lady Margaret School. Enid's published books included Storming The Citadel: The Rise of the Woman Doctor in 1953 which focussed on Elizabeth Garrett Anderson and a biography of her father, titled The Life and Letters of C. F. Moberly Bell, in 1927, sixteen years after his death. Committed to social justice, in 1930 Enid and Anne Lupton were the committee member and hon-secretary respectively of the Fulham Housing Improvement Society. Concerned with establishing homes and "shelters", the association "issued shares and loan stock at a low rate of interest and with the income built new housing and re-conditioned old property which was then let at affordable rents. Properties were administered by lady managers on the principles laid down by Octavia Hill". In 1946, Enid wrote Hill's biography.
Subject and Association Keywordswomen's history
Subject and Association Keywordswomen's work & labour
Subject and Association Keywordssocial reform
Subject and Association Keywordshousing activism
Subject and Association Keywords(auto) biography
Named CollectionGlasgow Women's Library
Object TypeBook
Object numberGWL-2025-85-3
Spine LabelOCTAVIA HILL by E. Moberly Bell
Copyright LicenceAll rights reserved