Octavia Hill's Contribution to the Growth of the “Open Space” Movement

Abstract

Octavia Hill (1838-1912) was a prominent English social worker in the second half of the 19th century. Her work for the improvement of housing and housing management has been widely appreciated. However, although she was one of the founders of the National Trust, less attention has been given to her campaign for better urban and rural environments. She exerted a particularly strong influence through her campaign for the preservation of, and access to, open space in both cities and the countryside, thus influencing ideas and opinions that were to lead to the emergence of environmental planning.
This article examines the content and scope of Hill's contribution to the “open space” movement. It places her activities within the context of rapid urban change and growth in Victorian London, especially from 1865 onward. It also argues that her achievements were of greater importance than has previously been acknowledged by geographers.
Her interests in open space may be categorized, from her own writings, as four-fold: space “to live, ” “for children, ” “for fresh air, ” and “for beauty.” From small beginnings in Freshwater Place in crowded inner London where, in 1866 she cleared a playground for local children, her work developed to include the opening up for public use of disused burial grounds and private open spaces. As London spread outward into the countryside, she campaigned for the preservation of old common lands and other open spaces. Her work for the permanent opening of Parliament Hill Fields in north London provides an example.
Hill fought using great skill in writing, publicity, discussion, and negotiation to overcome problems created by the weakness of existing Acts of Parliament and complex local government arrangements ill-suited to managing the problems of rapid urban growth. Her work extended outward from London to include the areas of natural beauty in the Kentish Wealden area of southeast England and as far away as the beautiful Lake District of Cumbria. She was an early leader of excursions to the countryside, often with the tenants of the houses that she managed in crowded and smoke-ridden London.
With her sister Miranda, she established the Kyrle Society in 1875. Centers of beauty were established in industrial cities to teach the value of environmental and artistic qualities to interested men and women of the working classes. An Open Space Subcommittee was set up in 1879 and its work foreshadowed that of the National Trust, established in 1895.
Indications are given of the influence of Hill's work on John Ruskin, William Morris, and others. Her links with Raymond Unwin and the “Garden City” movement were also influential. Although neither an architect nor an urban planner, Hill's zeal in advocating the importance of environmental quality and access to open space was especially noteworthy in changing opinions about the need for urban and environmental planning in Great Britain at a formative time in the development of town and country planning concepts. Her leadership in these respects has gone largely unrecognized by geographers.