Florence Davenport Hill (1828/9-1919) was a prison reformer. She was particularly concerned with improving the lives of pauper orphans.

Early life and education

Florence Davenport Hill was born in 1828/9, in Chelsea in London. Her parents were Matthew Davenport Hill and Margaret Bucknall. In 1826, the family had moved to Chancery Lane then in 1831 with Florence, they moved to Hampstead Heath. The children were Alfred Hill born in 1821, Rosamond Davenport Hill who was also born in Chelsea, Matthew Berkeley Hill and Joanna Margaret Hill who was born in Hampstead in 1836/7.^[2]

Florence's immediate family were all reforming individuals but her extended family on her father's side included the stamp inventor Rowland Hill, the prison inspector Frederic Hill and Francis Hill.^[2]

As part of her schooling her father arranged for Florence and her sister Rosamond to interview the Irish writer Maria Edgeworth on March 1, 1840. That year, the family moved to Haverstock Hill. After their move, they became friendly with William Makepeace Thackeray.^[1]

Teaching career and prison reform interests

In 1841, the family moved to France, followed by Belgium in 1844, and eventually Switzerland and Italy. The family moved back to England, settling in Bristol, in 1851 due to Matthew Davenport Hill becoming a bankruptcy commissioner.

In 1866 Davenport Hill signed the 1866 Suffrage petition and two years later, with her fathers permission, she invited women to her house to promote the suffrage cause. She became a member of the resulting committee that represented the south-west of England.^[3]

Without her father

Her father died in 1872.^[1]

Upon her father's death, Davenport Hill traveled to Adelaide, Australia, to visit family including her reforming cousin Emily Clark. She travelled with her sister Rosamond and the two of them were to stay together for life.^[2] While in Australia, the sisters did inspections of schools, prisons and reformatories. Henry Parkes served as one of their guides. Rosamond Davenport Hill spoke before a commission in Sydney about the reformatory movement. The two sisters traveled from Australia to Egypt and Italy, returning home in 1875. During their travels, they wrote and published "What we saw in Australia". In 1878, they published a biography about their father. The two sisters lived in Hampstead. Davenport Hill left the Church of England and became a Unitarian Universalist.^[1]

In 1886 Davenport Hill was invited to preside over a suffrage meeting at Westminster Town Hall where it was agreed that a quicker method was required to improve women's rights. The new idea was intended to be more effective than meetings and petitions. The action resulted in over a quarter of a million signature being presented at Westminster Hall. Despite their intentions there appears to have been little reaction to their list of signatures.^[3]

Without her sister

Rosamond Davenport HIll died at Hillstow on August 6, 1902.^[1] After her sister's death Florence carried on their work alone. She took an interest particularly in prison reform and the related subjects of poor law reform and conditions of pauper orphans. She published Children of the State which advocated that children should be allowed to live outside their normal residence of a workhouse. She realised that these children would face dangers outside the workhouse, but she believed that these institutions created demoralisation, dependence and loss of hope. She advocated a home-like environment as this was the only way she claimed to create morality, self-discipline and integrity in the children. She died in Oxford on 2 November 1919 leaving money to several good causes.^[3]