I was grieved to hear of so much wrong in the court, and to think of you in the lovely autumn, trying to stem it. But, in one sense, one is never lonely in one’s efforts to stem wrong. So mighty is the Power that fights with us.
Do you ever think that the want you feel in the people is due less to the amount than to the kind of help. Part of it is due to their own selves, there is no denying it; but is it not also due, in part, to many of the present workers acting rather from a supposed height, than face to face, and heart to heart, from real human sympathy and friendship? I think so. The outward gift never wins gratitude, or calls up the gracious sense of affection. The human sympathy always does. Do you know, by the way, Lowell’s “Sir Launfal”?
CHAPTER IX
1881—1889
APPOINTMENT BY THE ECCLESIASTICAL COMMISSIONERS
This period of return to work was marked by many very welcome successes. The consent of Ruskin to the legal transfer of his houses in Paradise Place to Octavia, and the purchase by Mr. Shaen of Freshwater Place were proofs of the stability of her plans.
From 1883 to 1889 lasted the great movement for rescuing Parliament Hill and the neighbouring land from the builder, and adding it to Hampstead Heath; and many other victories in the open space struggle were also achieved at this time.
But perhaps the most remarkable change in Octavia’s position, as a worker, was her appointment by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to manage a great part of their property in Southwark. She was asked to attend a meeting of that body. They wished to learn if she would buy some old courts belonging to them. This, she said, was impossible. Then they asked if she would take a lease of these same houses; and, when she declined to do so, they asked if she would undertake the management. This she consented to do; and the Commissioners were so much impressed with the capable business-like character of her remarks, and with her subsequent management, that they afterwards extended the territory under her care.
It should be noted, in this connection, that this position gave her the first opportunity of planning cottages, while Red Cross Hall and Garden gave further occasion for her development of entertainments and outdoor-life for the poor. It is in this period also that her links with foreign workers were extended. Some housing work had begun in Paris, at an earlier time; and the translation by H.R.H. Princess Alice of “The Homes of the London Poor” into German had led to the formation of the “Octavia Hill Verein” in Berlin. Swedish and Russian ladies also came to ask advice, and Miss Le’Maire has given an account in an Italian magazine of the impression left upon her by her visit to Octavia.
WORK IN DEPTFORD
It was during this time that Octavia took over the management of some houses in Deptford, the care of which seemed to weigh heavily on her mind. If, indeed, one compares her descriptions of these South London courts with the early letters about some of the Marylebone tenants, there can be no reason to suppose that the prospects of improvement were more hopeless in the later effort than in the earlier; but Octavia had now begun to realise that management from a distance was an almost insuperable difficulty; and that to delegate or transfer distant work would become a necessary duty. Although, therefore, marked improvement was made in the relations between her and her Deptford tenants, as will be seen from the letter written in 1885 during the Trafalgar Square riots, she felt it better in the end to hand the care of these houses over completely to a very efficient fellow-worker, who succeeded in managing the courts in a satisfactory way.
A curious incident connected the Deptford work with another successful effort to save an open space. When visiting one of the tenants in Queen Street, Deptford, Octavia noticed a glass filled with flowers, and on enquiry found that they had been picked in a place known as “Hilly Fields.” Octavia was struck with the name, followed up the clue, and eventually succeeded in securing the Fields as a public open space. This story rests on the authority of the American lady, Miss Ellen Chase, who worked with Octavia in Deptford, and who, on returning to Massachusetts, carried out the same principles in the management of houses in her own country.