Hill Homes owes its existence to the foresight and energy of Margaret Hill.

Born in 1885, Margaret came from a distinguished family. Her father, John Neville Keynes, was a fellow of Pembroke College Cambridge, lecturer in moral sciences, Registrar of Cambridge University and author of books on formal logic and political economy. Her mother, Florence, who was an early graduate of Newnham College, Cambridge, was active in a number of charities and local government. In 1914, Florence became the first woman member of Cambridge Borough Council. Eighteen years later, at the age of 70, she became the city’s mayor.

Margaret’s younger brother, Geoffrey, a surgeon at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, was knighted for his pioneering work on blood transfusion. Her elder brother, Maynard, was the most famous economist of the twentieth century. He was awarded an hereditary peerage in 1942.

Some of the most abiding memories of Margaret’s childhood involved the visits she made with her mother, a Poor Law Guardian, to a Cambridge workhouse. There, she saw poor people of all ages being humiliated, kept apart from their husbands or wives in single-sex dormitories, provided with negligible nursing and given inadequate food.

In 1913, Margaret married Archibald Vivien Hill, a noted academic who would win the Nobel Prize for Physiology and Medicine in 1922. Following the couple’s arrival in Highgate in 1923, Margaret threw herself into voluntary work with the Hornsey Maternity and Child Welfare Centres. At the All Saints Mission Hall in Church Road, Highgate, she pioneered the system of home help for confined mothers that is now established throughout the UK.

Margaret was elected to Hornsey Borough Council in 1929. Four years later, she was inspired by her experience as a Poor Law Guardian to found Hornsey Housing Trust. She later declared: “Only the poorest accommodation was to be had at a rent which could be afforded. Old people could manage if they were fortunate enough to live in their relatives’ houses; otherwise, they were underfed, cold and uncared for.”

In 1940, Margaret was asked by Hornsey Council to manage homes requisitioned for the use of elderly blitz victims. By October of that year, she had organised the opening of Highgate Homes for Aged War Victims, which provided rooms for 33 residents at 9 and 11 Hampstead Lane. Margaret’s brother, Maynard, donated £100, while local people provided furniture, bedding and a pony and cart. There were also gifts from The American and Canadian Red Cross, the Women’s Voluntary Service and the Lord Mayor’s Air Raid Distress Fund.

Constant bombing meant that the home rarely had a full complement of windows. With water and gas frequently cut off for extended periods, oil stoves were commandeered for cooking and heating. But the biggest problems were a shortage of space and the lack of any facility for physically frail older people. In response, Margaret demanded the requisitioning of Highgate School Sanatorium, which had become empty. Having achieved her goal in just two days, she ensured that the new home was equipped and functioning within a further fortnight.

In March 1944 Margaret learned that the Ministry of Health planned to de-requisition all the Highgate Homes after the war and transfer the residents to other institutions. However, as she later explained, “Many of the old people had been with us for four or five years and we were disinclined to throw them over”.

Three months later, on 6 June 1944 (D-Day), the management committee of Hill Homes held its inaugural meeting. Unable to take over the Highgate Homes, the committee decided to buy 14 Bishopswood Road and 2 Broadlands.

By 1948 Hill Homes had gained national and international recognition. Just as they do today, local volunteers and charities played an invaluable role in supporting the various homes; and, just as they do today, residents were able to enjoy outings, handicrafts and entertainments.

Margaret was not content to rest on her laurels, however. Long concerned by the plight of the mentally frail older people that Hill Homes was not equipped to help, she established Northolme in 1953. Later renamed Gwendolen Sim after a supporter and benefactor, the home broke new ground in this country by providing for ‘the accommodation and study of the mentally ageing’.

In 1957 Margaret was made a Commander of the British Empire.

In 1960, Margaret persuaded the Goldsmiths Company (a City livery company) to donate £50,000 to establish a new home for chronically sick old people. Another first, the home opened in 1963 and was called Goldsmiths. (When rebuilt in 1990, it was renamed Newstead.) Again, it attracted interest from the rest of the UK and abroad.

In October 1964 Margaret Hill chaired a Hill Homes committee meeting for the last time. Appointed the society’s first president by her grateful colleagues, she continued to serve on the committee.

Already much affected by Parkinson’s disease, Margaret retired in 1967. She died on 22 June 1970.