THE HOUSING WORK OF MISS OCT.A.VIA. HILL.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTILTOR."1
Srn,—Will you allow one who has had the inestimable privilege of seeing close at hand and, to a very small extent, sharing the work of Miss Octavia Hill for more than twenty years, to add a word of comment to your sympathetic notice of August 24th? You seem to think that the extension of her housing work was checked by want of funds, but it did not depend on the acquisition of fresh houses, as she constantly took over the management of those belonging to other owners, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, as well as private owners, putting large numbers into her hands. She had under her direct supervision many hundreds of tenements in Marylebone, Notting Hill, Southwark, Lambeth, Westminster, and Hoxton, and mainly, I believe, through her inspiration others have set on foot similar work in Manchester and many provincial towns, as well as in Scotland, the United States, and Holland ; and she was at least consulted as to such work in Germany, France, Russia, and Italy. When some years ago the Ecclesiastical Commissioners asked her to take the management of a large estate which they were laying out in Walworth, in addition to that of the other property which she managed for them, she felt that it was impossible to do so without neglecting work for which she was already responsible, but was happy in being able to introduce a friend peculiarly fitted for and willing to devote herself to the work. She would have been the last to measure success by statistics, and earnestly insisted that the only true success depended on moral qualities such as patience, courage, insight, tact, and humility, but she had the satisfaction of knowing that the work to which she gave her life would be carried on by ladies trained under herself and imbued with much of her spirit, and anxious also to train, as she had done, younger workers who would continue it in the same spirit, if under varying forms, when they themselves must lay it down. —I am, Sir, &c.,
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