Homes Of The London Poor

Social reformer Octavia Hill was a passionate advocate for improving the living conditions of the urban poor in Victorian London. In this collection of essays, she offers a detailed examination of the housing crisis in the city and provides concrete proposals for how to address it. She also explores the broader social and economic issues that contribute to poverty and inequality. This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.

Originally published together in 1970, this study collects two essays on the housing situation of London in the nineteenth century. Homes of the London Poor was first published in 1875 and written by Octavia Hill, the granddaughter of the pioneer of sanitary reformation, Dr. T. Southwood Smith. Influenced by his work and by Christian socialism, she aims to outline the housing problems in London present in her lifetime and how reformation could help those in need of affordable and sanitary housing. The second text comes from a pamphlet written by Andrew Mearns in 1883 which highlights the overcrowded and unsanitary housing conditions that were still a major issue eight years after Hill’s work was published. Both works together present a clear picture of the appalling conditions the poor and homeless were forced into in Victorian London. This title will be of interest to students of history and social work.

'Homes of the London Poor' is a collection of essays by Octavia Hill, a Victorian social reformer who dedicated her life to improving the conditions of poverty and poor housing in London. Hill's approach included practical action and campaigning for change. She believed in helping the poor towards self-support and self-respect, with the goal of bringing them out of poverty. Hill's plan involved obtaining possession of houses to be let in weekly tenements to the poor, with a focus on sanitation and educational work. Her hope was to encourage habits of industry and effort, empowering the poor to become independent and self-sufficient.