Celebrating Octavia Hill

Image courtesy of the BBC.

A Fitzrovian who helped shape our understanding of community

At the age of 14, Octavia Hill (1832-1912) began to work at the Society of the Employment of Ladies on 8 Fitzroy Street. She was in charge of overseeing child workers who made toys, and she quickly realised that they lived in appalling conditions inside London’s slums. She fed them and taught them to read while they tended a garden on the property in return, and eventually Octavia went on to become a housing reformer and advocate for proper living conditions and financial management.

Her successful campaign to create green spaces for fresh air and recreation for all led to the creation of the National Trust in 1895. Londoners will know the value of the precious green spaces protected and maintained in the city, from the various local parks such as Regent’s Park to parklets and community gardens scattered around Fitzrovia, including our own Green Oasis right in the heart of Fitzrovia Community Centre.

Octavia created a new system of collecting rent, a job she created for women living in apartments to help them take responsibility of their own communities and empower them to pursue employment. This enabled them to connect with the other tenants of the building, making themselves available to resolve personal or family problems. In effect, Octavia Hill invented the beginnings of the modern social worker. Her philosophy was rooted in solving community issues with the community, rather than with large institutions where it could be helped. In many ways, she laid the foundations of the way in which community organisations like ours continue to work today: empowering and up-skilling individuals to lead on change within their own communities. She went on to found Octavia Housing.

Find out more about Octavia here and here. Information courtesy of Gillian Darley for Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and Characters of Fitzrovia, edited by Mike Pentelow and Marsha Rowe.