Born into a family of radical thinkers and reformers with a strong commitment to alleviating poverty, she herself grew up in straitened circumstances owing to the financial failure of her father's businesses.

Hill was a moving force behind the development of social housing, and her early friendship with John Ruskin enabled her to put her theories into practice with the aid of his initial investment.

She campaigned against development on existing suburban woodlands, and helped to save London's Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields from being built on.

She was one of the three founders of the National Trust, set up to preserve places of historic interest or natural beauty for the enjoyment of the British public.

[2][3] He had been impressed by the writings on education of his future wife, the daughter of Dr Thomas Southwood Smith, a pioneer of sanitary reform.

[1] Southwood Smith was a health and welfare reformer concerned with a range of social issues including child labour in mines and the housing of the urban poor.

Caroline Hill held similar views on social reform, and her interest in progressive education, influenced by Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, and Southwood Smith's daily experience in his work at the London Hospital in the East End inspired Octavia Hill's concern for the poorest in early Victorian London.

[citation needed] Her views on encouraging self-reliance led to her association with the Charity Organisation Society (COS), described by Hill's biographer Gillian Darley as "a contentious body which deplored dependence fostered by kindly but unrigorous philanthropy ... support to the poor had to be carefully targeted and efficiently supervised.

She did not dress, she only wore clothes, which were often unnecessarily unbecoming; she had soft and abundant hair and regular features, but the beauty of her face lay in brown and very luminous eyes, which quite unconsciously she lifted upwards as she spoke on any matter for which she cared.

[3] Hill's system was based on closely managing not only the buildings but the tenants; she insisted, "you cannot deal with the people and their houses separately"[4] and she strongly believed that good quality, well-managed homes make for happier, healthier lives.

She maintained close personal contact with all her tenants, and was strongly opposed to impersonal bureaucratic organisations and to governmental intervention in housing.

She and her assistants (who included Emma Cons and Eva McLaren) combined the weekly rent collection with checking every detail of the premises and getting to know the tenants personally, acting as early social workers.

[12] In 1859, Hill created the Southwark detachment of the Army Cadet Force, its first independent unit, which gave training along military lines for local boys.

[1] Hill considered that such an organisation would be more like the "real thing" than such existing outfits as the Church Lads' Brigade and therefore more attractive to young men "who had passed the age of make-believe".

Despite being up to date with his rent, a tenant was surprised to receive Notice to Quit, because he would not send his children to school and had overcrowded his rooms.

Hill's principles were summed up in an article of 1869: "Where a man persistently refuses to exert himself, external help is worse than useless."

[6] In 1884, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners recognised her enlightened approach and turned to her to manage and reform 48 of their slum properties in South London, which were notorious for poverty and petty crime.

Darley ascribes a number of contributory causes: "chronic overwork, a lack of delegation, the death of her close friend Jane Senior, the failure of a brief engagement",[b] as well as an attack on her by John Ruskin.

But a visit to Wimbledon, Epping, or Windsor means for the workman not only the cost of the journey but the loss of a whole day's wages; we want, besides, places where the long summer evenings or the Saturday afternoon may be enjoyed without effort or expense.

[17]She campaigned hard against building on existing suburban woodlands, and helped to save Hampstead Heath and Parliament Hill Fields from development.

[1] Before that, however, Hill was engaged in a campaign in 1883 to stop the construction of railways from the quarries in the fells overlooking Buttermere, in the English Lake District, with damaging effect on the unspoilt scenery.

The campaign was led by Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley, who secured the support of Ruskin, Hill, and Sir Robert Hunter, solicitor to the Commons Preservation Society.

Both he and Rawnsley, building on an idea put forward by Ruskin, conceived of a trust that could buy and preserve places of natural beauty and historic interest for the nation.

[3] Under its full formal title, the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty was inaugurated the following year.

Although Ruskin had turned against her in a bout of mental instability, she found a new supporter, the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who handed over to her the management of their housing estates in several poor areas of south London.

[4] Beatrice Webb said that she "first became aware of the meaning of the poverty of the poor," while staying with her sister, who was a rent collector for Octavia Hill in the East End.

[1][29] When John Singer Sargent's portrait of her was presented by her fellow-workers in 1898, Hill made a speech in which she said, "When I am gone, I hope my friends will not try to carry out any special system, or to follow blindly in the track which I have trodden.

Today it owns several of the homes, including Gable Cottages, designed by Elijah Hoole, who worked with Hill for many years.

The National Trust, who now own the site, has set up a commemorative guided walk that passes the seat,[37] and two Octavia Hill Trails in Kent.

[42] A zonal pelargonium 'Octavia Hill' bred in Germany by plant-breeding company Elster PAC Jungpflanzen was launched at the Birthplace House in June 2009.