Margaret Neville Keynes

Margaret Neville Hill CBE (née Keynes; 1885 – 22 June 1970) devoted her career to the welfare of the elderly and was the founder of Hill Homes in Highgate, and Hornsey Housing Trust in Hornsey.

Early years Margaret Neville Keynes was born in Cambridge in 1885, the middle child of three of John Keynes and Florence Ada Keynes. Her older brother was the economist John Maynard Keynes and her younger brother the distinguished surgeon and scholar Sir Geoffrey Keynes. She was brought up in Harvey Road, Cambridge and was educated at home by a governess and later at Wycombe Abbey School.

Career Cambridge Instead of academia, Margaret chose a career which followed the pattern of her mother's. Florence Keynes had attended Newnham College, Cambridge, went on to become a social reformer, magistrate and the first woman councillor of Cambridge, becoming Mayor in 1932. She established an early juvenile labour exchange, the Cambridge Boys' Employment Registry, There is a Blue Plaque above 82 Regent Street where the Boys' Employment Registry was sited. Margaret and Eglantyne developed a close relationship, Margaret resigned as Secretary of the Boy's Employment Registry in 1912, when her friend and future sister-in-law, Margaret Darwin, the daughter of Sir George Howard Darwin and granddaughter of Charles Darwin, took over, but she remained on the board until 1920, when the Hills moved to Manchester, then London in 1923.

Highgate, London Within a year of the Hills' arrival in the north London suburb of Highgate, Margaret became involved in voluntary social work, firstly with the Hornsey Maternity and Child Welfare Centres, setting up a Highgate branch in 1928 and then becoming a Poor Law Guardian. In 1929, she was elected to the Hornsey Borough Council and in 1933 was one of the founder members of the Hornsey Housing Trust. From the work of the Trust, Margaret realised that ′some of the older and more infirm tenants were in need of personal help as well as accommodation′ and in 1939 Margaret opened her first home for eight elderly ladies, called Delia Grotten's at 47, Cecile Park Road, Crouch End, London N8, with her parents making a generous contribution towards the conversion of the Edwardian house. During their 54 years in Highgate, according to their grandson Nicholas Humphrey, the Hills' informal tea parties at their home were attended by as many as 18 Nobel Laureates, as well as their friends Stephen Hawking and Sigmund Freud. They retired to Cambridge in 1967, where Margaret Hill died on 22 June 1970 from Parkinson's disease.

Archibald and Margaret Hill had two sons and two daughters: Polly Hill (1914–2005), economist, married K. A. C. Humphreys, registrar of the West African Examinations Council David Keynes Hill (1915–2002), physiologist, married Stella Mary Humphrey Maurice Hill (1919–1966), oceanographer, married Philippa Pass Janet Hill (1918–2000) psychoanalyst, married the immunologist John Herbert Humphrey

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