By I. G. GIBBON, D.Sc., C.B.E., Ministry of Health.
Of standards we have heard much in connection with new housing, and,
quite naturally, nearly always of material standards—of the number of
houses to the acre, the size and the number of rooms, the provision of
baths and the like; but of personal standards little, although persons
of experience know full well that, where there are difficulties, half
the trouble, at a moderate estimate, could be removed by personal
action. The experiment of the ownership and management of large numbers
of houses by Local Authorities is not free from the hazards of
democratic control; some in full sympathy with the experiment view it
not without some misgivings, and the misgivings will not be without
place if adequate measures are not taken for proper management.
It is timely, therefore, that we should be reminded of the most
instructive experiment made during the last century in the management of
house property, the work of Octavia Hill. Her experiment in house
management would probably have by now won her many more practical
followers had she been less of a social worker; but had she been less of
a social worker she would never have made the experiment. There may
still be a few of the comparatively small number of persons who know of
her work who look upon it as an attempt to insinuate a District Visitor
under the disguise of a rent collector. District Visitors doubtless have
their place and season; but the aim of those who would follow in the
footsteps of Octavia Hill, the Women Property Managers, is to manage
property on a firm business basis, to make it pay (and they have shown
that they can make it pay, more so in difficult circumstances than
business management of a dull routine kind), and to carry out the work
with knowledge and experience, with sympathy and tact, and with as
reasonable a regard to the genuine interests of the tenants as of the
owner. This is their aim, and, where person and place fit, their
achievement.
Octavia Hill’s influence was great in this country; but it passed beyond
its borders. One of the most interesting reports issued in recent years
on the management of house property has been that of the Octavia Hill
Association, at Philadelphia, who report the uniform success of
management on the lines laid down by Octavia Hill.[1] In Holland, also,
her influence has been great; and at Amsterdam, for instance, all
municipal house property, which is extensive, is managed by women who
have been trained in her methods.
Footnote 1:
See _Good Housing that Pays_, by Fullerton L. Waldo. Philadelphia: The
Harper Press, 1012-20 Chancellor Street. 1917.
The ideal in these matters, I think, is self-management, where the
tenants in a group of houses manage their own affairs with a social
regard to their own real interests, an almost impossible result at the
present time unless the tenants have a substantial financial stake in
the property. We are very far indeed from this solution as yet, though
every effort is needed towards achieving it; and one disappointing
result of the State-assisted scheme of houses is the very poor showing
made by Public Utility Societies. But a large measure of self-management
is not precluded from the scheme of management on Octavia Hill’s lines,
as, indeed, has been demonstrated in practice.
There should be no spirit of patronage in management; if, as happens,
the tenant comes to look upon the property manager as a counsellor and
friend, this should grow out of the business management and as an
incident to it.
Octavia Hill and her successors did not work simply by the light of
nature, or believe that women, as such, had a God-given aptitude for
this business, though, house management being primarily a matter for the
wife and mother, it naturally opens a field for which women should be
well fitted. But the same need of instruction arises whether the
management be by men or by women. The pupil has to be put through a
severe course of training; she has to be versed in the most important
facts of the law as to rents, landlord and tenant, and sanitation; she
has to be acquainted with the defects which occur in houses, and how
most economically to remedy them. Above all, she has to acquire that
measure of firmness, tact and sympathy without which success is not
likely to be attained. A pupil who is likely to be fully successful must
have a goodly measure of that personal aptitude which, though difficult
to test by any system of examination, is as vitally necessary as are the
essential technical qualifications.
If the manager of house property is to give of her best, she must be
trusted with ample responsibility and authority. If hampered by
restrictions, if limited in authority, if not granted powers for
selecting and dealing with tenants and the control of repairs, if she
has to refer to superior authority, whether an employer or an official
or a Committee, before action can be taken, there is not much hope, even
under favourable conditions, of more than a bare success. Here lies one
principal danger, equally of autocracy or democracy. It is not good
business or sound sense to pay a person for duties and to relieve her of
the real responsibility attached to them, including the risk of
dismissal for failure.
In dealing with slum property the lessons of Octavia Hill’s work are
exceedingly encouraging. Weary years must pass before there can be
extensive demolition and rebuilding of slum areas. Are we therefore to
lie resigned and allow these grievous sores to fester in our cities and
towns?
In properly qualified management we have one at least of the keys to a
temporary, if not a permanent, solution of the problem; and in this way
we may effectively deal with the real evil. The ordinary method of
clearance and rebuilding has often resulted too much in the shifting of
the evil to another quarter, though it may be, happily, in a less
concentrated form.
One incidental gleam from the reading of the papers in this volume is of
the great advances which have really been made in housing conditions. We
are apt at times, not without reason, to gird at the slowness with which
the manifest evils around us are being removed, but it is well
occasionally, for a proper sense of proportion and for reform itself, to
be reminded of the great improvements which have been achieved.
It is important to bear in mind that the principles of trained
management apply as much to privately owned as to public property. If
the owners of properties in areas which are now classed as slums would
but join together and employ for the common management of their property
persons trained and with aptitude for the work, it is no exaggeration to
say that within a few years a great transformation would be effected in
the slum problem of London and of other towns, a transformation which
would not only ease the manifold burdens of public authorities, but
would be less irksome to the owners of the property and of untold
benefit to its occupiers.
Equally important is it to remember that the methods of management
associated with Octavia Hill are as pertinent for new property as for
old—indeed, in some ways more so, for prevention is better than cure.
She learnt her secrets in dealing with bad property, just as the
scientist wrests his secrets from the pathological. Management of house
property on the general lines laid down by her, adapted and developed,
and, as I believe, with increasing emphasis on co-operative
self-management, will help materially not only in the minor achievement
of preventing property from degenerating into slums—and this, as
experience shows, may well happen even with good and well-planned
property—but in the greater achievement of attaining that higher
standard of contentment and of pride of home and locality which should
be the aim of all those who have the interests of the country at heart.
The following are some papers written by Miss Octavia Hill in connection
with her housing work.
They are republished in the hope that her methods may be widely adopted
in the efforts that are now being made to improve the very defective
housing conditions in our cities.
M. M. JEFFERY.
EDITH NEVILLE.