Who is Octavia Hill?

When volunteering at an Octavia foundation charity shop in London’s Kentish Town, I stumbled across the name giver of this organisation: Octavia Hill.

Octavia was living in 19th century London. She was a prominent figure in the fight against land developers who were as early as the 1830s planning to build townhouses and villas on London’s famous green lung “Hampstead Heath”. Yes, the Hampstead Heath. This amazingly vast forest so close to the city.

We Londoners take the open space of Hampstead Heath for granted every time we stroll across on a lazy Saturday morning to visit the Farmer’s market, to adore views of our London city, to play tennis or to just ease our minds when taking a walk to Kenwood House, admiring its art collection and enjoying its lush wood land surroundings.

When I learnt about this “green” conservation battle taking place over Hampstead Heath almost 200 years ago, I was hooked and wanted to know more about Octavia Hill. So let me share this tale about an extraordinary life.

~Who is Octavia Hill?~

Octavia Hill was not only an environmental activist. She might be best known for co-founding the National Trust. Yet, looking at her widespread social transformation activities and underlying beliefs, “social entrepreneuse” is a befitting term for her life’s central pursuit.

Octavia grew up in a family committed to social change focusing on alleviating poverty and setting up Octavia for her future view of the world.

~The Family~

Octavia’s mother, Caroline Southwood Smith, was a writer and educationist raised in a London-based family pioneering sanitary reform. Octavia’s dad James Hill was an energetic businessman, and a thoroughgoing idealist. A banker and corn merchant, James also owned a newspaper in which he campaigned against church taxes and municipal corruption. He founded an elementary school, a mechanics institute and a lending library. Was fond of “Utopian Socialism”. Three times married. Eleven children. Declared bankrupt when Octavia was two years old. Suffered mental collapse. Nervous breakdown. Deserted his family.

Octavia and her four sisters would have been in a dire situation if it wouldn’t have been for her resourceful mother and helpful grandfather. Octavia’s grandfather was Dr Thomas Southwood Smith, a well-known public figure, a Doctor of medicine and health reformer who would inspire the first Public Health Act of 1848 and consequently construction of sewerage systems in British cities.

Octavia’s grandfather provided financial backing and assumed some proxy father guidance while her mother Caroline brought up Octavia and her four sisters. On her own, as single mother. Octavia’s mother Caroline was an educational reformer, passionate about children’s welfare. 23 years old, Caroline had already written articles about a pedagogic system under which “children’s bodies as well as their minds should be cared for”. With this confidence and hands-on attitude, Octavia’s mother made a virtue of both her beliefs and her tight financial situation. She home-schooled her daughters and taught them to look after themselves.

~The Belief in God~

Yet, let’s try not look at Octavia’s upbringing from a too bohemian or agnostic perspective of the 21st century. Clearly, the biggest motivation of Octavia’s work was the belief in God. Octavia was deeply religious. Her grandfather served as “Unitarian” Minister, he was a spiritual leader of a faith community known as rather liberal in the interpretation of Christianity. Octavia was Unitarian as all her family and was inspired by her religion to work for great social cause.

It was also Octavia’s grandfather Dr Southwood Smith who encouraged her and her sisters to attend “sessions” with his intellectual entourage. At a very young age Octavia would listen to distinguished speakers debating current social issues. We hear that the audience of intellectuals were quite impressed about the academic maturity of the sisters’ quartet.

With no formal schooling other than her mother’s home teachings, Octavia worked from the age of 13 for the welfare of working people. She first supported her mother who had started a job as Manager of the “Ladies Cooperative Guild”. Founded by Christian Socialists, this organisation supported destitute women and impoverished children earning money by making crafts. A work that matched the conviction of Octavia’s mother: The rather modern sounding idea of “self-help”.

In this indigent, yet bustling no-nonsense environment Octavia grew up quickly and assumed responsibilities teenagers wouldn’t usually be confronted with. Octavia would form a both charitable and fiercely organised attitude that would be her trademark for the years to come.

~A Life Changing Opportunity~

We are writing the year 1865, Octavia had just turned 26. This was her defining moment. She jumped at an opportunity that would manifest her social reform visions turning them into reality. What had happened?

Her long-standing friend and mentor John Ruskin had inherited a substantial sum from his late father. Ruskin was an intellectual all-rounder. An influential art critic, writer, philosopher and champion of the Pre-Raphaelite movement, he had turned his attention increasingly on social and political issues. John Ruskin was not only impressed by Octavia’s artistic and commercial skills, but shared her views on pressing social problems of the time and valued her activism.

It was hence no wonder that Octavia saw the opportunity of putting Ruskin’s inherited money to good use. Octavia pitched her first social business idea to Ruskin: Homes for the Poor. If Ruskin was to finance the acquisition of property, Octavia would manage the properties earning Ruskin a 5% annual return on his investment. That was the deal. Ruskin was in.

They, no, correction, Ruskin I meant to say, first bought property just off Marylebone High Street. Octavia started out with three cottages – as a property management agent. Each cottage had six rooms. Each room was inhabited by one family. What today is prime central London property near Regent’s Park, was only 150 years ago a wretched picture of daunting poverty. The houses were dirty and damp with leaking roofs, broken windows and inefficient fireplaces. Plaster was falling from ceilings and walls. Foul-smelling rubbish was piling up in the streets, and neither running water nor sanitary facilities were available. Equally neglected were the tenants. Mostly unemployed, drunk, with the hostile attitude of desperate folk.

~The Social Entrepreneuse~

And it is here where Octavia’s different property management strategy plays a vital role in securing the success of her business model. Her goal was to make this social enterprise work by not only transforming the property, but by ultimately transforming its tenants to self-respecting members of society who should be able to and would want to pay their rent and support their families.

Octavia didn’t classify her social venture as charity. Her humanitarianism was based on her belief in self-help. Conventional charity she found made the poor even more reliant on a rather simple stream of donations but didn’t really help to effectively fight poverty. Enabling and nurturing which would lead to accountability for one’s actions and pride in one’s achievements were Octavia’s mantra.

One could argue that this is easily said for the ones standing on the other side of the fence. The comfortable, the well-off, the educated, the able, the know-how-to-navigate-the-world side of the fence. Yet, Octavia did stick to her convictions. Her methods were highly principled. Octavia insisted on her tenants paying their bills on time. Rent arrears were not tolerated. Maybe you think about nowadays financial transaction methods like bank transfer. Think again, two hundred years ago. One had to go to the tenants’ premises to collect the rent. In person. And this is what made Octavia’s social business idea successful.

She went to collect rent herself and spoke to her tenants. A typical “meet the customer” chapter of today’s Anglo-American business bible. 200 years ago, it was a radical idea. Octavia learnt about the dire and impoverished life of each of her tenants, and that they were often caught in a vicious circle of unemployment, alcoholism and violence. She introduced a for the time being unusual action plan: You get yourself together. I show you how. I take care of the home you live in and help you to get work, teach you to manage your money and support you to advance in your “spiritual growth” so you can take care of yourself and your family. But. And this is the only condition: You commit to pay your rent on time. No buts, no ifs.

Let’s face the facts. There were tenants who didn’t make it to Octavia’s standards. If someone didn’t comply with her strict rule of paying rent on time, she moved them out of the premises. It was non-negotiable.

~Sweet Success, yet a price to pay~

Octavia worked herself to the bones managing her first social housing program and granting her investor the promised return while she also had to earn her own living with teaching. She was the CEO of a start-up after all, albeit without any grand salary, without any share options or any lavish expense account. A man in her shoes at that time would have negotiated a different deal I suppose. But she didn’t think of it, nor I assume anyone offered.

Her methods rendered results, Octavia’s reputation grew and she continually expanded her social housing enterprise. London’s elite was inspired. Being a do-gooder for a 5% return in investment! That was exciting! Getting her hands around funding to acquire new premises, was now not a problem any more. Only ten years after starting her first project, Octavia was managing 15 housing schemes for 3,000 tenants.

~Policy Making & Lobbying~

In 1875, Octavia was 37 years old, she extended her sphere of influence on a national level and became widely known not only for her social housing projects but as policy maker and lobbyist. She was one of the key individuals pressuring the UK government into the “Artisans and Labourers Dwellings Improvement Act”. This new legislation was aimed at improving living conditions of the working class and saw local councils purchasing neglected slum properties and renovating them to social housing projects.

Octavia continued to embark on further projects: Founding the British branch of the Charity Organisation Society (COS). Publishing articles about her housing management principles. Rubbing shoulders with new financial backers. Promoting her beliefs and methods through lectures and public speeches. Co-Founding the National Trust (a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in the United Kingdom), identifying and purchasing property for the National Trust. Campaigning to save open spaces for recreation, most prominently Hampstead Heath. Extending her social housing enterprise and supervising financial matters. Training her workers and developing training programs for her volunteers. Setting up social housing projects on behalf of the Christian Church.

This latter scheme the Christian Church had asked her to run, was a particular challenging initiative. Being one of the biggest land owners in London’s boroughs Southwark and Deptford, the Christian Church needed to reorganise their extremely rundown properties. These slums were populated by stroppy and tough tenants. Delicate detail to mention here, hush-hush, just between us of course: No wonder things had gotten out of hand in those districts as for centuries the most impoverished and desperate people were settling there. Not helped by the fact that in medieval London, the Bishop of Winchester was operating brothels in Church properties in Southwark and was benefiting from sex workers’ commissions to top up rental profits for Christian Church properties. A creative diversification of revenue streams, isn’t it?

It proved a difficult time for Octavia getting those Church properties up and running and we hear that she found those experiences, particularly in Deptford, one of the hardest of her entire career.

~Love Life~

Throughout her life, Octavia had pushed herself to her physical and mental limits. When taking on her first social enterprise, she was only 26 years old. Yet, at this rather tender age, she was already a social worker veteran who could look back on thirteen years of stressful work commitments for children’s welfare, adult education and art institutions. Though at the brink of exhaustion in her mid-twenties, she constantly took on more work and more responsibility. It showed. Her life was riddled with nervous collapses, ill-health and frequent phases of burnout.

A big disappointment in her love life didn’t exactly help to sooth her already delicate health condition. It happened when Octavia had turned 38. She had met Edward Bond, a 33-year-old wealthy barrister and later Member of Parliament, at the Charity Organisation Society. They connected and got engaged. Sources say that apparently Edward Bond’s mother, with whom he still lived, vehemently opposed their marriage plans. Bond got cold feet. The engagement was dissolved and they never met again. What a heartbreak.

~Unusual Competition~

In the later years of her career, she was faced with unusual “competition” she had created herself. London Councils were picking up her idea of social housing albeit with much more powerful means of funding. One can imagine how much further governmental funding would go. Reliable sources state that the budget gap was about 2000%. Octavia managing properties worth £70,000 with about 4,000 tenants in the 1880s vs. London Council at £1,500,000 during the years 1901/02. Cute figures by the way, looking at current London property prices. Just saying when nowadays only one central London flat would command a £1,500,000 price tag for just one family.

~A Driven Life~

Octavia would stay opposed to governmental interference in housing matters. Her view was that “municipal socialism and subsidized housing led to indiscriminate demolition, re-housing schemes, and the destruction of communities”. That was her conviction and nothing would change it.

Octavia didn’t have any of the other reforms either. She was against female suffrage because “men and women help one another because they are different, have different gifts and different spheres.” She was opposed to state welfare and to old-age pensions. She also didn’t see any sense in parliamentary votes for women, stating that she thought that “women were unfit to determine matters of international policy, defence, and national budgets”. Her reasoning was that “women’s involvement in politics are at a local, suitably domestic level.”

Octavia died from cancer in 1912. She was 73.

Octavia did strongly believe that good environments produce good people. Octavia was ambitiously driven, toughly principled and deeply passionate about her social work. She went down this road paying for it with a rather lonely life and an exhausting work schedule.

~Trailblazing was Octavia’s business~

A lot can be criticised in hindsight and from nowadays perspective. Was her method of interacting with her needy tenants not rather nasty and mean? And though called a social entrepreneuse, she wasn’t this sweet-tempered person people would like to associate with such a social profession.

Octavia was neurotic, overworked and by and large an overbearing personality. I don’t know if we would have wanted to be friends. She was obsessed and confident, had a single-minded business head on her shoulders and wanted to do the right things to create a better society. When it however came to fully recognising women’s proper abilities and societal rights, Octavia remained a child of a misogynist Victorian era, trapping her in a head space cage – just like the rest of us with so many topics brainwashing us with our flavour of narrow-minded zeitgeist and contemporary paradigms.

Having said this, we need to acknowledge that trailblazing was Octavia’s business those two hundred years ago. And as we all know, innovating never was and never will be an easy business. There are no gateposts, there are no instruction manuals. It is rather identifying your options and off you go with trial and error of the most promising choices. A messy business, I shall say.

At Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887, three women were invited. Three women who were supposed to have done most for the United Kingdom during Queen Victoria’s reign: There was Florence Nightingale, usually known as the founder of modern nursing, yet unbeknown to most a fascinating pioneer of visual statistics. And Anne Clough, in my opinion a much undervalued leader in the education of women. And Octavia Hill.

As for moi, I can only say: Thank you, Octavia. If women like you wouldn’t have existed and paid their personal price for their beliefs, I would today not stroll through this breath-taking and mind-soothing open space known as Hampstead Heath. Ta!