From Ruskin.
I have been prevented from telling you in answer to your lovely letter, that what Carlyle said was absolutely his own gathering and conclusion from what he had seen and read of you, or heard, in various general channels, and had no reference whatever to any report or praise of mine. I am very glad I had it to send you just when you are beginning to feel the Adversary at last rousing himself; and that you respect Carlyle so much as to be rejoiced by his thoughts of you.
The next letter refers to the housing scheme at Leeds.
From Rev. Estlin Carpenter to Mrs. Edmund Maurice.
On the practical side, Miss Octavia Hill had extraordinary mastery of detail. She was kind enough, when I was living in Leeds, to accept an invitation to come and describe her methods to a company, chiefly of business men. We arranged a meeting in the theatre of the Philosophical Hall, and some of the leading citizens were there. I well remember the surprise of some of them at the clearness—not only of her opening exposition—but of her spontaneous replies to questions concerning all sorts of matters affecting the treatment of house property, sanitation, repairs, bad debts.
CHAPTER VII
1875—1878
THE OPEN SPACE MOVEMENT
The period recorded in the following letters marks the inauguration of a movement, which Octavia considered almost as important as that housing work with which her name is especially connected—the movement for the preservation of open spaces. It will be remembered that, in her first efforts to deal with tenement houses, she had been particularly anxious to secure a house with a garden; and, failing that, she had devoted a large part of her energies to laying out a playground, and brightening it by May Festivals, in which efforts she had the hearty co-operation of Mr. Ruskin, who sent his own gardener to plant the trees.
It was natural, therefore, that she should desire to keep open all outlets for her poor friends in Marylebone, which would enable them to enjoy the fresh air and open country.
Hence she became considerably alarmed, when she heard, in 1873, that some difficulties, which had hindered the destruction of the fields near the Swiss Cottage, had been removed; and that building plans were in preparation. The fields were dear to her, not only as the nearest country outlet for the Marylebone poor; but also as recalling her childhood, when they formed part of a wide stretch of open country where she and her sisters had played. She at once threw herself into the promotion of a scheme for saving these fields from the builder, and securing them as a recreation ground for the public. She enlisted the sympathy of Dean Stanley, Mr. Haweis and other well-known Londoners in the movement; while Mr. Edward Bond and Mr. C. L. Lewes and other Hampstead residents tried to stave off the encroachments of the builders from Hampstead. But the agent, who had the building scheme in hand, when he found that the purchase money was likely to be raised, succeeded in throwing such difficulties in the way, that the scheme was defeated; and Fitzjohn’s Avenue rose upon the ruins of the memories and hopes, which I have described.
About the same time Octavia’s attention was called to the attempt of some members of the Society of Friends to build over the Bunhill Fields burial ground; an attempt obviously dangerous to health, and shocking to the feelings of many whose friends and relations were buried in the ground. Again, after a struggle, Octavia was defeated in her attempt to save the whole of the ground.