OCTAVIA HILL

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 95, 16 January 1939, Page 4

OCTAVIA HILL

Tributes To Memory Of Great Woman Reformer

Tributes to the memory of Miss Octavia Hill, the pioneer of women housing estate managers, were_paid recently at the Octavia Hill centenary dinner at Claridge’s Hotel. The Earl of Athlone described her as a wonderful reformer in the work of improving the conditions ,in which the poorest were forced to live. . The Incorporated Society of Women Housing Managers, which she founded, now employed on house property management 16S women, covering 48,000 tenancies, of whom 75, covering 35,000 tenancies, are employed by local authorities.

Mr. Walter Elliot, Minister of Health, proposing the toast of “The Society,” said that Octavia Hill had the inspiring belief that business and social welfare were not independent, but that both were social service. There were no functions which could not be adequately performed by women of the right character in house property management.

Mr. George Hicks, M.P., .said that Octavia Hill was one of Great Britain’s social pioneers. “It is impossible to conceive the conditions in which she started,” he said, “but we do know the poverty, the squalor and ignorance of the population when she began her work. She initiated a new science, the science of managing estates. She founded a new art, the art of understanding.”