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OCTAVIA HILL
with Gillian Darley
Thursday 10th September 2020
Doors open at 6:30 pm, Talk commences at 7:00 pm
Octavia Hill was the 9th of eleven children in a family of no rank. With no formal education but an incessant desire to help the poorest in London she became one of the most influential women of the Victorian era. Today she is chiefly remembered as the co-founder of the National Trust.
In celebration of the 125th anniversary of the National Trust, we invite you into the Victorian living room of Thomas and Jane Carlyle to hear the historian Gillian Darley discuss the life of Octavia Hill. Darley will concentrate on the way in which Hill’s personal experiences of London poverty as a young woman would inform her work as a housing reformer, social campaigner and conservationist.
Gillian Darley
Gillian Darley’s biography of Octavia Hill was first published in 1990. In 2010 it was reissued in an revised and redesigned edition. She has also written biographies of John Soane and John Evelyn, and a jointly authored account of Ian Nairn, the architectural journalist and film-maker. Her most recent book is Excellent Essex, a celebration of a misunderstood county. She was awarded an OBE in 2015 for ‘services to the built environment and its conservation’ and represented the SPAB on the Council of the National Trust 2008-14. She is currently President of the Twentieth Century Society and writes and broadcasts widely on architecture and landscape.
All National Trust events have been postponed due to Covid-19. We hope to be able to reschedule the events shortly. |