Erection date: 1951
Octavia Hill, 1838 - 1912, housing reformer, lived here.
London County Council
The plaque was erected in 1951. When the building was demolished in 1961 the plaque was retained and moved to 1 Millbank, which is where we photographed it.
Site: Octavia Hill - blue plaque - gone (1 memorial)
W1, Fitzroy Street, 8
This memorial was moved from here to a new location.
The plaque says Hill lived here and the has: "At the age of 14 {1852}, Octavia Hill ... began to work at the Society of the Employment of Ladies on 8 Fitzroy Street. She was in charge of overseeing child workers who made toys, and she quickly realised that they lived in appalling conditions inside London’s slums. She fed them and taught them to read while they tended a garden on the property in return ...". That all suggests that at 14 Hill was living away from home, at her place of employment. The says that at 14 Hill was living with her mother at Russell Place, Holborn and that they were both working at the Ladies Guild, a co-operative crafts workshop nearby and that Hill had responsibility for the ragged-school girls aged between eight and seventeen who were employed there. So it's all a bit unclear.
8 Fitzroy Street had another interesting period, when Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant lived and/or had their studios there. Tate has dated 1930 from Bell at 8 Fitzroy Street to Duncan Grant, Charleston. And Art UK has two interior paintings with the address in their titles: and . They were still occupying the property during WW2 and the September 1940 bomb that destroyed the building also destroyed much of Bell’s early work.
Sources: , .
We cannot find an image of the building.
The building currently on site is one of those glass monotone Mondrians to which it would be difficult to stick chewing gum, let alone a plaque.


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