Letters of Octavia Hill to Canon and Mrs Barnett, focusing upon her philanthropic activities, church matters and religion.
Octavia Hill 1832 - 1912
Octavia Hill was born at Wisbech, Cambridgeshire. She was the daughter of a corn-merchant who was noted locally for work in municipal and educational reform. Her mother was Caroline Southwood Smith, daughter of Dr. Thomas Southwood Smith, who was well-known as an authority on fever epidemics and sanitation. She was educated at home by her mother.
In 1852 she began work in London at the Ladies' Guild, a co-operative association promoted by the Christian Socialists, of which her mother became manager. She was soon put in charge of a branch engaged in teaching ragged school children to make toys. In 1856 Hill became secretary to the classes for women at the Working Men's College in Great Ormond Street, and a few years later she and her sisters started a school at 14 Nottingham Place. It was while living here and visiting her poor neighbours that she first became aware of the urgency of the housing problem. In 1864 she succeeded in making John Ruskin (1819 - 1900), the author, artist and social reformer, interested in her schemes for improving the dwellings of the poor. He advised Hill to place the work on a business footing, so that it would be taken up and extended by other people.
Hill was an active supporter of the work of the Charity Organisation Society from its beginnings, and was closely associated with the Kyrle Society (formed by her sister Miranda in 1877). She was also a member of the Commons Preservation Society, and helped found the National Trust. Although she refused to join the Royal Commission on Housing (1889), she became a member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws in 1905.
The letters have been arranged chronologically in 9 files.
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