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"Homes of the London Poor" (1875) a collection of magazine articles about social housing by Octavia Hill.

Hill was a late Victorian social reformer and pivotal in the development of social housing. The articles collected here were originally published in influential magazines from 1666 to 1875. These drew attention to the appalling housing conditions and her methods of remedying them. When they were compiled and published together, the collection was distributed around the world, helping to spread her ideas further. Hill's work became internationally recognised and her ideas were taken up and copied in continental Europe and the United States of America. The German translation of this collection was made by Princess Alice. This American edition was published in the same year as the British edition by Louisa Lee Schuyler, an enthusiastic supporter of Octavia's work.

The subject of dwellings for the poor is attracting so much attention, that an account of a small attempt to improve them may be interesting to many readers, especially as the plan adopted is one which has answered pecuniarily, and which, while it might be undertaken by private individuals without much risk, would bring them into close and healthy communication with their hard-working neighbors.

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Featured August 2012