New Work for Women
"BUSINESS is itself a social service, and social service is business," said Miss Jeffery, to a representative of the Spectator who called on her in her office at 23A Cumberland Market, where she is Agent for the Commissioners of Crown Lands. " The most marked development of the principles in which Miss Octavia Hill trained me have taken place quite recently, in the sphere of municipal work. My own connexion with it has been considerable, for eleven of the present fifteen provincial municipal workers have been trained in this office."
" I began here in 1916," Miss Jeffery continued, ".when the Commissioners asked me to look after our tenement house under their control. At first I refused, for my duties kept me engaged elsewhere, but when some other property in the neighbourhood of that belonging to the Commissioners came into my charge, I consented to look after this one extra house. By 1922 the Commissioners had given me eight hundred and fifty houses with a population of about eight thousand... Fifteen. assistants .now help me in this work and are qualifying themselves to meet the increasing demand for trained women property managers. The movement is spreading, for the Borough of Westminster has just resolved to employ a full-time woman manager and an assistant. No doubt other boroughs will follow. Outside London, Chesterfield, Walsall, Stockton-on-Tees, Rotherham, Scarborough, Leeds, Norwich, and Bebington Urban District Council are employing managers and assistants trained by me.", Knowing the great. importance Miss Hill placed on character, and the power of personal influence, one of the first questions we asked Miss Jeffery was what type of woman is best suited for this work, which is destined to have such a profound effect on the housing question. Hundreds—eventually thousands—of women will be required for it, for the human side of the slums will never be solved (no matter how much we build) until society regains a direct personal touch with its poorer members.
" University graduates are the best material, but I have had successful pupils who were trained in 'business offices, or in some definite social organization. The pivot of my work is the personal collection of rents, so that the tenants are in weekly touch with someone who is their friend and helper as well as rent collector. The qualities required are sympathy and justice and humour, as well as tact, firmness, and adaptability. But that is only half the battle. The collection of large amounts in small sums demands a good deal of accurate book- keeping. There are specifications to be made out, estimates to be passed, and other business dealings with contractors and workmen which all need practical training and experience. The most important thing is that in all our work we must consider people and houses together."
Houses and people. Here, indeed, is the crux of the matter. Times without number we have advocated a more vigorous policy in building and planning, until our readers must be tired of the iteration of this theme. The other side of the question is just as important, however, although less discussed. A certain proportion of citizens who are forced to live in congested or insanitary areas need only to be given new surroundings in order to " make good " ; given a chance, they will stand on their own feet, and be a credit to themselves and their country. But every nation, and not least industrial England, has its quota of unfortunates, varying all the way from the slightly careless or lazy tenant, whose self-respect can be maintained by periodical visits and advice, down to the mentally defective and congenitally hopeless who will have eventually to be segregated. Even the mad and the bad can be helped, but it is the height of folly, as Miss Jeffery told us very clearly, to imagine that all tenants are up to standard either in character or capacity.
The population of the slums will have to be thoroughly sifted. When the housing shortage is remedied, as it can and will be, women managers will be essential for the good administration of property, because they only can see the problems of our poor as they really are. They only see all kinds and conditions of tenants—not only the specially good or bad ones—and they enter their houses as receivers instead of donors, creating about them a perfectly different atmosphere to that of the social worker who has no business tie with those she serves.
As a career for women, we can think of none that is of greater social service, nor a work of greater scope and more varied contacts with modern life. At present the pay varies from £180 a year as assistant to £300 a year for a fully-qualified manager. Examination fees for a two-year course of training are from £40 to £50. Besides Miss Jeffery, Mrs. Barclay and Miss Perry take pupils (their address is 96 Seymour Street, and they are both Chartered Surveyors), and the Association of Women House Property Managers (at 3 Bedford Square) also finds places for and advises women who contemplate entering this new profession.
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