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May 06, 2008

Octavia Hill revisited

Tristram Hunt considers the legacy of the social reformer

Oct "And as ministers grapple with re-engineering the welfare state, it is not Keynes, Marx or Giddens who provide the inspiration, but Hill, the most versatile of late Victorian social entrepreneurs."

"As the era of Fordist bureaucracies crumbles, the space for pre-statist social enterprise is re-emerging. Yet the problem with this 1900s civic settlement is its dependence on a sense of Christian duty. Hill saw herself as a lonely, Puritan missionary toiling among the fallen. "

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