Autograph Letter Signed to "Mrs Seymour" containing some logistics relating to her work, appointing a man to a job, and mentioning how busy she is,

HILL Octavia 1838 -1912. Housing and social reformer (1895.)

£100.00 

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"I have little time for correspondence"

2 pages 8vo with integral blank leaf, 190 Marylebone Road, 25 May

Hill mentions her opinion of "Mr Loch" (almost certainly the secretary of the Charitable Organisation Society (COS), of which she had been a member for a number of years): "there is no one whose opinion I should so entirely trust on a matter of this kind. He has a rare and deep sympathy with men of all kinds, and a perception of character and power which make him nearly always know how to fit the right man in..." - and suggesting Mrs Seymour liaise with him directly regarding an appointment. Charles Stewart Loch was Secretary to the Council of the London Charity Organisation Society between 1875 and 1914,

Hill was one of the driving forces in the late nineteenth in developing social housing for the poor, particularly in cities such as London. Ruskin was an early friend and admirer whose financial backing (after the death of his father in 1864) allowed for Hill's long-held dream to establish improved housing for ‘my friends among the poor’ to become a reality. Hill also believed in the importance of the availability of open spaces, campaigned against urban development in areas still protected today (including Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields) and was one of three founders of the National Trust.

Hill's association with the Charity Organization Society grew out of her "firm ideas on self-respect, with their echoes of Samuel Smiles's Self Help, published in 1859, [which] led to her involvement with the Charity Organization Society (COS), a contentious body which deplored dependence fostered by kindly but unrigorous philanthropy. For the COS, support to the poor had to be carefully targeted and efficiently supervised. Later in life, however, she began to think the COS line, as kept by its committee, was over-harsh." (Gillian Darley, ODNB). 

Very good condition.

Stock Code: 224818

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