{Florence Hill was member of an English family with an impressive record in various aspects of Victorian social reform. As time passed, the members of the Hill family grew in social status and declined in reforming zeal. Florence, her sisters Rosamond and Joanna, and her cousin Caroline Emily Clark represented the last stage in the process. As middle class spinsters they expressed their views in an appropriate form, but managed nevertheless to have considerable effect. Florence devoted herself to the promotion of foster care which she did successfully on an international level, and to poor law administration as an early elected woman guardian of the poor. In all of her efforts she saw herself as acting in conformity with the heritage conveyed to her by her father.)
References
1.
Deborah Gorham, "Victorian reform as a family business: the Hill family" in A. Wohl, The Victorian Family: Structure and Stresses, London. Croom Helm, 1977.
2.
Dictionary of National Biography, London, Smith Elder & Co., 1891, Vol. XXVI, pp. 425-6.
3.
Dictionary of National Biography, loc. cit., p. 393.
4.
ibid., pp. 416-20.
5.
Australian Dictionary of Biography, Melbourne, Melboune University Press, 1966. Vol. 3. pp. 401-2.
6.
ibid., pp. 402-4.
7.
In the same year his brother, Edwin, married Margaret's youngest sister, Anne.
8.
Dictionary of National Biography, London, Smith Elder and Co., 1912, 2nd Supplement, Vol. II, pp. 265-6.
9.
Rosamond and Florence Davenport-Hill, The Recorder of Birmingham: Memoir of Matthew Davenport-Hill, London, Macmillan, 1878, p. 97.
10.
Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. VI, pp. 448-58.
11.
ibid, pp. 132-3.
12.
A recorder was a barrister appointed to be a judge and chairman of Quarter Sessions within a municipal borough. It was held concurrently with a practice at the bar, and was abolished in 1972.
13.
R. and F. Davenport-Hill, (1878), op. cit., pp. 151-75.
14.
Dictionary of National Biography, Vol. IX, pp. 159-61. J. E. Carpenter, The Life and Work of Mary Carpenter, London, Macmillan, 1879, J. Manton, Mary Carpenter and the Children of the Street, London Heinemann, 1976.
15.
Miss (Rosamond?) Davenport-Hill, "Mary Carpenter," The Sunday Magazine, 1880. pp. 450-6.
16.
R. & F. Davenport-Hill (1878) op. cit. p. 161.
17.
Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol. 1, pp. 221-3.
18.
R. & F. Davenport-Hill (1878) op. cit. p. 236. Ethel Metcalfe, Memoir of Rosamond Davenport-Hill. London, Long-man's Green, 1904, pp. 24-5.
19.
For example, see the letters in the Broughman MSS, Library of University College, London.
20.
R. & F. Davenport-Hill. (1878) op. cit. p. 244.
21.
E. Metcalfe. op. cit. pp. 28-9.
22.
M.D. Hill, Our Exemplars, Poor anl Rich, London, Cassell, 1860.
23.
R. & F. Davenport-Hill (1878) op. cit. pp. 408-10. See also Brougham MSS. loc. cit., item 7002, 29 October 1860, thanking Brougham for his preface and signed by all three daughters.
24.
Dictionary of National Biography, 2nd Supplement, Vol. 1, pp. 377-9. F. P. Cobbe, Autobiography, Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1895, Vol. 1, pp. 250-1. J. Manton, op. cit., pp. 148-52.
25.
See Florence's account of visits to Cobbe, in 1875 & 77, Windeyer Papers, (W.P.) Mitchell Library, Sydney, MSS 186/13, pp. 201-10; MS 186/8, pp. 327-34.
26.
Fraser's Magazine, September 1864, reprinted in Studies Old and New of Ethical and Social Subjects, London, Trubner 1865, pp. 147-207.
27.
F.P. Cobbe, Autobiography, op. cit., p. 309.
28.
Western Dailp Press, 21 September 1866, signed "F.H."
29.
ibid 18 September, 1866.
30.
The Times, 3-16 August, 1866, also letter from Rev. George H. M'Gill, 4 August, 1866.
31.
Mrs. Archer, wife of David Archer of Kingsdown House, Chairman of the Highworth and Swindon Guardians of the Poor, introduced boarding-out to that Union in 1863. See Poor Law Board Correspondence. Public Record Office, London (PRO) MH 12/13758, Letters 42285/65. 48778/65, 2726/66. She published her ideas in a Scheme for Befriending Orphan Pauper Girls, London Longmans Green. 1861.
32.
Western Daily Press, 22, 25 and 27 September, 1866.
33.
C.W. Grant, The Advantages of the Boarding-out System, London , Macmillan, 1869, p. 9. Dickens later acknowledged the differences of the new system, see "Little pauper boarders." All the Year Round, No. 39, 28 August, 1869, pp. 301-5.
34.
Western Daily Press, 2 & 23 February, 1867. PRO MH 12/13315, letters 2720/67, 16900/67, MH 12/4013, letters 4053/67, 6737/67, 6870/67.
35.
Her influence led ultimately to success in Bristol, see letter from H. H. Goodeve, The Times, 7 November, 1874. See also PRO MH 12/3871 letter 16074/70.
36.
Florence Hill, Children of the State, London, Macmillan 1868.
37.
British Library (B.L.) Add. MS 56016, No. 80.
38.
B.L. Add. MS 55932, fol, 1.
39.
B.L. Add. MS 55387, Macmillan to Florence Hill 20 September, 1867. Of this correspondence, only those letters from Macmillan have survived.
40.
II. Pinchbeck and M. Hewitt, Children in English Society, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973, Vol. 2. p, 522. For a contemporary comment see C. W. Grant, A practical guide to the boarding-out system, London. Knight & Co., 1870, which is dedicated to Florence.
41.
See "Boarding-Out Poor Children in Families" Springfield (Massachusetts) Weekly Republican, 6 February. 1869. also R. H. Bremner (ed.) Children and Youth in America; A Documentary History, Harvard University Press, 1971 Vol. II, pp. 291 ff.
42.
See Tasmania, Journal of the Legislative Council, Vol, XIX, 1873. Paper 54. Victoria, Votes and Proceedings of thr Legislative Assembly, 1873, Vol. 3. Second and Final Report of the Royal Commission on Industrial and Reforma. tory Schools, p. 246.
43.
"The difference between Boarding-Out and Baby-farming," Proceedings of the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, 1869. pp. 604 ff, "The family system for workhouse children," The Contemporary Review, September, 1870, pp. 240-73.
44.
PRO MH 12/14003, letters 5584/69, 16069/69.
45.
PRO MH 25/21. letter 20820/70; The Times, 4 May 1870, 9 December 1870; House of Commons Papers 1871. Vol. XXVII. 23rd Report of Poor Law Board, p. 43. See also M. Horsburgh. "No Sufficient Security: the reactions of the Poor Law Authorities to Boarding-Out," Journal of Social Policy (forthcoming January, 1983).
46.
C. W. Grant (1869) op. cit., p. 15.
47.
They describeed their journey in R. & F. Hill, What We Saw In Australia, London, Macmillan and Co. 1875.
48.
See her own account in C. H. Spence, State Children in Australia, Adelaide, Vardon and Sons. 1907, pp. 14-21.
49.
R. & F. Hill, (1875) op. cit. pp. 273-341.
50.
Parkes Correspondence (PC) Mitchell Library Sydney, MS Ag 20. pp. 383-90, A. W. Martin, Henry Parkes: A Biography, Melbourne University Press, 1980, p, 184.
51.
P.C., MS A923, pp, 468-71.
52.
ibid. MS A988, pp. 385-400, A920, pp. 363-6, pp. 367-70.
53.
ibid., MS A923, pp. 446-9; H. Parkes, Fifty Years in the Making of Australian History, London, Longmans: Green. 1892, Vol. 1, p. 174.
54.
Even if only from his counterpart in Tasmania. Colonial Secretary's Inward Letter 73/6845 in Box 4/1083, Archives Office of N.S.W.
55.
R. & F. Hill (1875) op. cit. p. 288. See New South Wales, Votes and Proceedings of the Legislative Assembly, 1873/ 74, Vol. 6 for the Commission's reports and evidence. See also, E. Govan, "A Community program of foster-home care: New South Wales, 1881." Social Service Review, Vol. XXV No. 3 September, 1951, pp. 363-75 for an accaunt of the introduction of foster care into New South Wales.
56.
P.C. MS A98, pp. 374-7; A923, pp. 460-3.
57.
R. & F. Hill (1875) op. cit. p. 434.
58.
W.P. MS 186/13 pp. 235-42.
59.
The letters from F. Hill to Macmillan are in MS 1089, University of Reading Archives. and cover the period from May to December, 1878. The letters from Macmillan to F. Hill are in British Library Add. MSS 55405-9.
60.
B.L. Add. MS 55407 fol. 497.
61.
ibid., fol. 828.
62.
E. Metcalfe, op. cit., p. 59. See also R. & F. Davenport-Hill (1878) op. cit. p. 324. In 1896 Florence was invited to Buckingham Palace to introduce Octavia Hill to Princess Alice (W.P. MS AC47) whom she had met in September 1872 when she accompanied Mary Carpenter to Darmtadt, (J. E. Carpenter, op. cit. p. 399). The mistake of supposing Florence to be Octavia's sister is quite common, see A.F. Young and E. T. Ashton, British Social Work in the Nineteenth Century, London, Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1956, p. 128. Elizabeth Wilson, Women and the Welfare State, London, Tavistock, 1977, p. 55.
63.
Reading University MS 1089, 7 October, 1878.
64.
See the approval given to this aspect of boarding-out by the review of Children of the State, in Englishwoman's Review. No. VII, April, 1868, p. 456.
65.
R. & F. Davenport-Hill (1878) op. cit., p. 115.
66.
ibid., p. 250.
67.
J.E. Carpenter, op. cit, p. 200.
68.
S.J. Tanner, How the Women's Suffrage Movement began in Bristol, Bristol , Carlyle Press, 1918, p. 6.
69.
The Times, 16 March, 1912.
70.
Fawcett Library, London, No. 6697, 20 December 1906.
71.
Greater London Record Office, St. Paneras Board of Guardians. Minutes (St. P.B.C.) Vol. 21, pp. 317-21.
72.
ibid., p. 325.
73.
F. Davenport-Hill and F. Fawke, Children of the State, 2nd edition. London, Macmillan, 1889, p. 349.
74.
W.P. MS 186/13, pp. 313-6; 421-7.
75.
St. P.B.G. 22, p. 533; 23, pp. 168/9.
76.
St. P.B.G. 82/1, pp. 22-7.
77.
ibid., pp. 30-2.
78.
ibid., pp. 34-5.
79.
ibid., pp. 38-40.
80.
St. P.B.G. 27, pp. 106/9.
81.
St. P.B.G. 82/1, p. 40.
82.
St. P.B.G. 27, pp. 135-7.
83.
The Times, 2 June, 1887.
84.
ibid., 2 June, 1887. There were other letters on the same subject.
85.
B.L. Add. MS 55426 fol. 834.
86.
Reading University Archives. MS 1089, 12 December 1888.
87.
W.P. MS 186/9, pp. 7-16.
88.
Reading University Archives. MS 1089. 20 July, 1897.
89.
Greater London Record Office. Hampstead Board of Guardians (H.B.G.) 20, p. 416,
90.
H.B.G. 13, pp. 349, 375-6.
91.
H.B.C. 20, pp. 95, 100, 109.
92.
ibid., pp. 9-11.
93.
ibid., 21. p. 161.
94.
The Times, 7 December 1874. Her account of the debate is contained in a letter to Mary Windeyer in WP MS 186/13, pp. 157-60.
95.
The Times, 29 January. 1894. See also 8, 12, and 29 January, 1894 and official reaction to the controversy. P.R.O. MH 32/92 letter 25157/94.
96.
W.P. MS 186/13 pp. 441-5.
97.
W.P. MS Ac 47: 31 August, 1903.
98.
Fawcett Library London, 695B, to P. Strachey, 3 November, 1910
