‘Nobler imaginings and mightier struggles’ Octavia Hill, social activism and the remaking of British society For Hugh, Bertie, Charlie and Harry and Julie, Reuben and Toby with our thanks ‘Nobler imaginings and mightier struggles’ Octavia Hill, social activism and the remaking of British society Edited by Elizabeth Baigent and Ben Cowell LONDON INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH Published by UNIVERSITY OF LONDON SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU First published in print in 2016 (ISBN 978 1 909646 00 1) This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY- NCND 4.0) license. More information regarding CC licenses is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Available to download free at http://www.humanities-digital-library.org ISBN 978-1-909646-58-2 (PDF edition) DOI: 10.14296/917.9781909646582 iv Contents Acknowledgements vii About the contributors ix Abbreviations xiii List of illustrations xv Foreword Dame Helen Ghosh, director general, National Trust xix I. ‘The habit of seeing and sorting out problems’: Octavia Hill’s life and afterlife 1 1. Octavia Hill: ‘the most misunderstood … Victorian reformer’ 3 Elizabeth Baigent 2. Octavia Hill: lessons in campaigning 27 Gillian Darley II. ‘Beauty is for all’: art in the life and work of Octavia Hill 45 3. Octavia Hill: the practice of sympathy and the art of housing 47 William Whyte 4. Octavia Hill’s Red Cross Hall and its murals to heroic self-sacrifice 65 John Price 5. ‘The poor, as well as the rich, need something more than meat and drink’: the vision of the Kyrle Society 91 Robert Whelan 6. Octavia Hill: the reluctant sitter 119 Elizabeth Heath III. ‘The value of abundant good air’: Octavia Hill and the meanings of nature 139 7. Octavia Hill, nature and open space: crowning success or campaigning ‘utterly without result’ 141 Elizabeth Baigent v ‘Nobler imaginings and mightier struggles’ 8. Octavia Hill and the English landscape 163 Paul Readman IV. ‘A common inheritance from generation to generation’: Octavia Hill and preservation 185 9. ‘To every landless man, woman and child in England’: Octavia Hill and the preservation movement 187 Astrid Swenson 10. Octavia Hill and the National Trust 209 Melanie Hall V. ‘The loving zeal of individuals which cannot be legislated for by Parliament’: Octavia Hill’s vision in historical context 241 11. At home in the metropolis: gender and ideals of social service 243 Jane Garnett 12. Octavia Hill, Beatrice Webb, and the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws, 1905–9: a mid Victorian in an Edwardian world 255 Lawrence Goldman VI. Hill’s legacy 275 13. ‘Some dreadful buildings in Southwark’: a tour of nineteenth-century social housing 277 William Whyte 14. For the benefit of the nation: politics and the early National Trust 295 Ben Cowell Index 317 vi Acknowledgements This volume comes out of a conference of the same title which was held at the National Trust’s Sutton House, London, on 27 and 28 September 2012. We should like to thank all of those who were involved in it: the staff of Sutton House, particularly Christopher Cleeve and Robyn Finney for their generous hospitality and home-made cakes (which are still fondly remembered); Octavia Housing, particularly chief executive Grahame Hindes for facilitating the generous sponsorship of the conference, and staff members Hannah Thompson and Rachel Harrison who helped with its administration and the tour of housing sites with which it ended; Jessica Hindes of Royal Holloway, University of London, for her invaluable and self-effacing help with the conference’s planning and execution; the opening speaker, Dame Fiona Reynolds, director general of the National Trust, for setting the scene so aptly; the session chairs − Dr. Peter Funnell of the National Portrait Gallery, Professor Charles Watkins, of the University of Nottingham, Loyd Grossman of The Heritage Alliance, Samuel Jones of Tate, and Jessica Hindes − for ably introducing our speakers and guiding our discussion; the participants for lively questions and pleasant conversations; and all the speakers, including those whose papers became chapters in this volume, but also our graduate student speakers whose papers greatly added to the conference’s first day. The process of translating the conference papers into a book has had to fit around many busy schedules, and it is a pleasure to thank the publishers, particularly Jane Winters, professor of digital history and head of publications at the Institute of Historical Research (IHR), University of London, and all the contributors for seeing the project through to the end. The book has benefited greatly from its illustrations, made possible by a grant from the Scouloudi Foundation, in association with the IHR, for which we are most grateful. We hope the images and maps increase readers’ use and enjoyment of the volume. The institutions and individuals who have made their images available to us are credited alongside the relevant illustration, but are warmly thanked here, particularly where they did so at no or a reduced cost. Giles Darkes’s expert help with cartography is warmly acknowledged. Many institutions have helped the contributors and editors of this book: the National Trust has supported the project in a number of ways, including as partner in the conference and as the custodian of the archives on which several contributors depended (archival staff Janette Harley and Iain Shaw vii ‘Nobler imaginings and mightier struggles’ deserve particular thanks). The Octavia Hill Birthplace Museum Trust, Wisbech, under its director Peter Clayton has been a supportive presence, while Patricia McGuire, archivist, King’s College, Cambridge, has given generous assistance to various authors. Other institutions and individuals are named separately in the chapter footnotes. Finally, thanks must go to our families (Hugh, Bertie, Charlie and Harry, Julie, Reuben and Toby) for their patience: their knowledge of the little lady in the mushroom hat, as C. R. Ashbee memorably called Octavia Hill, is probably more extensive than they’d bargained for. This book is dedicated to them. Elizabeth Baigent, Oxford and Ben Cowell, Newport, Essex. viii About the contributors Elizabeth Baigent is reader in the history of geography at the University of Oxford. She publishes widely on the history of travel, exploration and cartography. She became interested in the early conservation movement while research director of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and her work on Hill and other conservationists such as Sir Robert Hunter and Edward North Buxton stems from this time. Ben Cowell is regional director for the National Trust in the east of England. He is also deputy chairman of The Heritage Alliance, and worked formerly for English Heritage and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. He has published widely on aspects of history and heritage, including a short biography of Sir Robert Hunter, co-founder of the National Trust. Gillian Darley is a writer and biographer. Her biography of Octavia Hill was first published in 1990 and the revised edition, retitled Octavia Hill: Social Reformer and Founder of the National Trust came out in 2010. Gillian is a trustee of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) and from 2008 to 2015 was its nominee to the National Trust council. She is president of the Twentieth Century Society. Jane Garnett is fellow and tutor in history at Wadham College, Oxford. From 1994 to 2004 she was consultant editor for women on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. She has published widely on the intellectual, cultural and religious history of the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries, and on gender and visual culture over wider periods. Recent publications include (with Gervase Rosser), Spectacular Miracles: Transforming Images in Italy from the Renaissance to the Present (2013) and (co-edited with Alana Harris), Rescripting Religion in the City: Migration and Religious Identity in the Modern Metropolis (2013). Lawrence Goldman is director of the Institute of Historical Research at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, where he is also professor of history. From 2004 to 2014 he was editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, and he has published extensively on nineteenth-century Britain, including Science, Reform, and Politics in Nineteenth Century Britain: the Social Science Association 1857–86 (2002), and most recently The Life of R. H. Tawney: Socialism and History (2013). Melanie Hall is associate professor and director of museum studies, in the History of Art and Architecture Department at Boston University, USA, ix ‘Nobler imaginings and mightier struggles’ having previously worked on the listed buildings resurvey for English Heritage. She writes on material culture and the preservation of landscapes and buildings at the turn of the twentieth century, and recently edited Towards World Heritage: International Origins of the Preservation Movement 1879–1930 (2011). She was for many years a volunteer expert lecturer for the National Trust and is completing a history of its origins. Elizabeth Heath is assistant curator (research) at the National Portrait Gallery, London (NPG), working part-time on the later Victorian portraits catalogue for which she has undertaken research into portraits of Octavia Hill. She is a third-year collaborative PhD student, based at the NPG and the University of Sussex, and her research investigates the professional practice of Sir George Scharf, the gallery’s first secretary and director (1857– 95). John Price is a lecturer in modern British history at Goldsmiths, University of London. His research interests include constructions of civilian heroism, the history of social movements and popular protest, and the history of London. His recent publications include Everyday Heroism: Victorian Constructions of the Heroic Civilian (2014) and Heroes of Postman’s Park: Heroic Self-Sacrifice in Victorian London (2015).