A woman of substance - Octavia Hill

Who is the woman you ask? I was reading the UK's National Trust Spring 2012 magazine about one of their three founders, who died 100 years ago.She is regarded as one of the greatest social entrepreneurs the UK has ever produced and the legacy she left. All the more extraordinary for a woman in Victorian Britain. John Bird, fouder of the Big Issue is quoted as saying "Octavia believed in making a hue and cry in order to see something happen. And she didn't believe in doing things for people. She wanted to enable them to help themselves - to own the solution to their problems". Working for te Ladies Guild from 1852 she identified with those in poverty and in need of social housing in London. She began with a series of properties saying that the poor had to be helped to help themselves. By the mid 1870's she was providing social housing for 3,000 tenants! Visit www.nationaltrust.org.uk and click on Octavia Hill.