714 



HILL 



KILLER 



ed. 1839 ; latest ed. 1871 ) has been sold in large 

 numbers. Besides this he wrote several pamphlets, 

 as Imposture Detected (1777), Aphoristic Observa- 

 tions (1790), Spiritual Characteristics (1803; 3d ed. 

 1860), some volumes of Sermons, Hymns, and other 

 works. See Lives by Sidney (1834), W. Jones 

 (1834), Sherman (1857), Broome (1881), and 

 Charles worth (1876; 2d ed. 1886). 



Hill, ROWLAND, VISCOUNT HILL, was son of 

 Sir John Hill of Hawkeston and nephew of the pre- 

 ceding, and was born at Frees Hall, in Shropshire, 

 August 11, 1772. Entering the army at fifteen, he 

 became captain at twenty, commanded the 90th 

 regiment in Sir Ralph Abercromby's Egyptian 

 expedition, and was gazetted brigadier-general 

 in 1803. He accompanied Sir Arthur Wellesley to 

 Spain in 1808, and was his right arm throughout 

 the whole Peninsular war. His conduct and cour- 

 age earned him a C.B. in 1811, and three years 

 later he was made Baron Hill of Almarez for his 

 capture of the forts of Almarez. At Waterloo he 

 led the brigade which swept the Old Guard from 

 the field, and he remained with the army of occu- 

 pation as second in command until it evacuated 

 the French territory. He succeeded Wellington 

 as commander-in-chief of the army in 1828, but 

 resigned in 1842, when he was made Viscount Hill. 

 He died unmarried at Hardwicke Grange, Shrop- 

 shire, December 10, 1842, and was succeeded in 

 his titles and estates by his nephew Sir Rowland 

 Hill, Bart. See his Life by the Rev. Edwin 

 Sidney (1845). 



Hill, SIR ROWLAND, K.C.B., originator of the 

 uniform penny postage system and reformer of 

 the post-office, was born at Kidderminster on 3d 

 December 1795. From a very early age down to 

 1833 he taught in his father's school from 1819 in 

 Hazlewood, near Birmingham, a school-house built 

 by himself, and afterwards at Bruce Castle, Totten- 

 ham. Rowland was always of an inquiring and 

 ambitious turn of mind, with a decided talent for 

 initiating reforms. At first he busied himself with 

 mechanical and other inventions, later in life with 

 questions of public concern. In 1826 he was one 

 of the founders of the Society for the Diffusion of 

 Useful Knowledge. After he had ceased to teach, 

 he took an interest in the socialistic schemes that 

 were being discussed and experimented with about 

 that time, especially by Robert Owen. Then his 

 restless mind led him to take an active share in 

 the colonisation of South Australia, under Wake- 

 field's system of colonising. Amongst other things 

 his attention had been drawn at different periods 

 to postal questions ; and he became sensible that 

 there existed an urgent need for a diminution 

 in the high rates of postage, which practically 

 excluded all but the wealthy from postal inter- 

 course. His views on the subject, advocating a 

 low and uniform rate of postage, to be prepaid by 

 stamps, between all places in the British Isles 

 irrespective of distance, were published in the form 

 of a pamphlet, Post-office Reform, in 1837. His 

 plan was eagerly taken up by Mr Robert Wallace, 

 M.P. for Greenock, who gave essential help in 

 fighting the case through parliament. Two years 

 later Hill was attached to the Treasury for the 

 purpose of putting his projected reforms into 

 execution ; and on 10th January 1840 the present 

 uniform penny rate came into force. On 6th 

 May following stamped envelopes and adhesive 

 stamps were issued to the public, but the pre- 

 ference for the latter was soon made mani- 

 fest. In 1841 the Conservative government, 

 which had consistently opposed the reduction of 

 postage, came into office, and in the following 

 year, through the influence of certain government 

 officials who strongly resented all innovations, 



Rowland Hill was dismissed from his position. 

 Four years later a sum of 13,000, raised by 

 public subscription, was presented to him as a 

 token of public esteem to a national benefactor. 

 In the same year the Liberals returned to power, 

 and Hill was appointed secretary to the Post- 

 master-general. This office was exchanged in 1854 

 for that of secretary to the post-office. In 1864 

 he was compelled to resign owing to ill-health, 

 and was then awarded a pension of 2000 for life, 

 together witli a parliamentary grant of 20,000. 

 The effect of his reforms in the United Kingdom 

 has been to raise the number of inland letters from 

 about 77 millions annually to about 1900 millions, 

 or about twenty-five fold, and it may be stated 

 generally that the main principles of his plan 

 have now been adopted in every civilised country 

 throughout the world. Sir Rowland Hill was 

 made a Knight Commander of the Bath in 1860. 

 He died at Hampstead on 27th August 1879, and 

 was buried in Westminster Abbey. Amongst the 

 other improvements and reforms he effected in the 

 post-office system must be mentioned the establish- 

 ment of the book-post (1848), the reform of the 

 money-order office (1848), and of the packet ser- 

 vice, and a multitude of minor improvements affect- 

 ing the administration of the postal service. See 

 the article POST-OFFICE ; Sir Rowland Hill's book, 

 The State and Prospects of Penny Postage (1844); 

 and the Life (1880), by his nephew G. B. Hill, 

 which includes Sir Rowland Hill's History of the 

 Penny Postage. His eldest brother, MATTHEW 

 DAVENPORT HILL (1792-1872), recorder of Bir- 

 mingham from 1839 to 1866, distinguished himself 

 bv his labours for education and the reformation 

 of criminals. See Memoir by his daughters ( 1878). 



II il lali. or HILLA, a town of Turkey in Asia, 

 on the river Euphrates, 60 miles S. of Bagdad, on 

 the site of Babylon, out of the ruins of which it was 

 built about 1100 A.D. Tanning and the manu- 

 facture of silk, cottons, and woollens are carried on. 

 The population fluctuates between 7000 and 15,000. 



Hillel, called HABABLI ('the Babylonian') and 

 HAZAKEN ('the Elder'), one of the greatest 

 and most influential doctors of the Jewish law, 

 was born about 60 B.C. in Babylonia, of poor 

 parents, but in the female line of royal (Davidian) 

 descent. When forty years old so runs the Tal- 

 muclic account he migrated into Palestine for the 

 purpose of studying the law under Shemaia and 

 Abtalion, the great masters of the period. Five 

 or six years after Herod had mounted the throne 

 Hillel was elected president of the sanhedrim. 

 The range of his acquirements is said to have 

 been immense, embracing not only Scripture and 

 tradition, but nearly all branches of human and 

 superhuman knowledge. Yet he was one of the 

 meekest, most modest, kind, and simple-hearted 

 men. Hillel was the first who collected the 

 numberless traditions of the oral law, and arranged 

 them under six heads (see MlSHNA). Between 

 him and his contemporary Shammai and their 

 respective followers there arose a spirit of keen 

 rivalry, the latter being advocates of greater strict- 

 ness and rigour in the interpretation of the law. 

 Hillel died about 10 A.D. His doctrine has often 

 been compared with the early teaching of Jesus. 

 See Delitzsch's Jesus und Hillel (3d ed. 1879). 



Hiller, FERDINAND, pianist, musical composer, 

 and writer on music, was born at Frankfort-on- 

 Main on 24th October 1811. Having been a pupil 

 of Hummel, he began to teach in his native town ; 

 but from 1829 to 1836 he laboured in Paris. The 

 next nine years he spent partly in Italy, partly in 

 Germany ; it was during this period that he pro- 

 duced his best work, the oratorio Die Zerstorung 

 von Jerusalem (1839). Then, after three years' 



