Octavia Hill (3 December 1838 – 13 August 1912[1]) was an English social reformer, whose main concern was the welfare of the inhabitants of cities, especially London, in the second half of the nineteenth century. Born into a family of radical thinkers and reformers with a strong commitment to alleviating poverty, she herself grew up in straitened circumstances owing to the financial failure of her father's businesses. With no formal schooling, she worked from the age of 14 for the welfare of working people.
The Corn Laws were tariffs and other trade restrictions on imported food and corn enforced in the United Kingdom between 1815 and 1846. The word corn in British English denotes all cereal grains, including wheat , oats and barley . They were designed to keep corn prices high to favour domestic producers, and represented British mercantilism . [a] The Corn Laws blocked the import of cheap corn, initially by simply forbidding importation below a set price, and later by imposing steep import duties, making it too expensive to import it from abroad, even when food supplies were short. The House of Commons passed the corn law bill on March 10, 1815, the House of Lords on March 20th and the bill received Royal assent on March 23, 1815.