Margaret Hill (social reformer)

Instead of academia, Margaret chose a career which followed the pattern of her mother's. Florence Keynes had attended Newnham College, Cambridge,[1] went on to become a social reformer, magistrate and the first woman councillor of Cambridge, becoming Mayor in 1932. She established an early juvenile labour exchange, the Cambridge Boys' Employment Registry,[1] and was secretary of the local Charity Organisation Society, which provided pensions for the elderly living in poverty.[1]

Margaret's first job was at the Boys' Employment Registry with Eglantyne Jebb (founder of the Save the Children charity in 1919), later setting up a similar one for girls.[2] There is a Blue Plaque above 82 Regent Street where the Boys' Employment Registry was sited.[3] Margaret and Eglantyne developed a close relationship,[4] which came to an end with Margaret's engagement to Archibald Hill in February 1913.[5] Margaret resigned as Secretary of the Boy's Employment Registry in 1912, when her friend and future sister-in-law, Margaret Darwin, the daughter of Sir George Howard Darwin and granddaughter of Charles Darwin, took over, but she remained on the board until 1920, when the Hills moved to Manchester, then London in 1923.[4]

Within a year of the Hills' arrival in the north London suburb of Highgate, Margaret became involved in voluntary social work, firstly with the Hornsey Maternity and Child Welfare Centres, setting up a Highgate branch in 1928 and then becoming a Poor Law Guardian. In 1929 she was elected to the Hornsey Borough Council and in 1933 was one of the founder members of the Hornsey Housing Trust. From the work of the Trust, Margaret realised that ′some of the older and more infirm tenants were in need of personal help as well as accommodation′[6] and in 1939 Margaret opened her first home for eight elderly ladies, called Delia Grotten's at 47, Cecile Park Road, Crouch End, London N8, with her parents making a generous contribution towards the conversion of the Edwardian house.[4] Today there are thousands of modest residential and nursing homes for the elderly, but when Delia Grotten's opened it was almost unique.

During the war, because of her official Council position, she was given responsibility for the air raid shelters dug in the Borough's parks and open spaces, but her main occupation throughout the war was to set up an organisation, Highgate Homes for Aged War Victims, which requisitioned large vacant houses for the elderly who had lost their homes through bombing. In 1941 she helped found the National Old People's Welfare Council (now part of Age Concern) and in 1943 she became a member of the Rowntree Committee on the Care of Old People.[4]

In 1944 Hill Homes Ltd was formed, with Margaret appointed as Chair, holding its inaugural meeting at 16 Bishopswood Road, on 6 June 1944 (D Day). She served as Chair for the next 20 years during which time the number of homes owned and managed by Hill Homes expanded to nine. She was made the company's first President in 1966.[4] In 1957 her work was publicly recognised when she was awarded the CBE.