HILL, MATTHEW DAVENPORT. 



HILL, ROWLAND. 



421 



Lord Hill poumiJ in rare perfection the qualities which we re- 

 mind to constitute a military commander of the highest class. 

 With careful thought and preparation, he combined in action promp- 

 titude, perfect oooliMM, presence of mind, and fertility of resource. 

 HM eoergy wm untiring and unintermittod, and when circumstances 

 required it be exhibited the moat daring intrepidity. Strict in dis- 

 cipline, he wai at the same time careful of tha comfort, health, and 

 live* of hi* man, and his command over them was unlimited. The Duke 

 of Wellington, throughout the whole of the Peninsular War, treated 

 him with unbounded confidence ; and they lived on termi of the moat 

 familiar intimacy till Lord Hill'* death. His life has been written by 

 Mr. Edwin Sidney, 1 voL Svo, 1850. Those who wish for information 

 as to his operations and achievements in Portugal and Spain, will 

 find it given in vivid detail in Napier's ' History of the Peninsular 

 War.' 



HILL, MATTHEW DAVENPORT, wa bom at Birmingham in 

 1792, being the eldest of a family of which the five sons have identified 

 themselves in a remarkable degree with the great moral and material 

 improvements of our times. Their father, Thomas Wright Hill, who 

 died in 1851, at the age of eighty-nine, was a native of Kidderminster, 

 and he subsequently settled in the neighbourhood of Birmingham as 

 the head of a school, which in later yean became celebrated for the 

 origin*! views of education which were there carried into practice aa 

 ' the Haialwood system.' Mr. Thomas Hill's great merits have been 

 set forth in a ' Brief Memoir,' published in the ' Annual Report of the 

 Council of the Royal Astronomical Society ' in 1852. His love of 

 scientific pursuits continued from his earliest to his latest years, and 

 even within a month or two of his death he was occupied in framing 

 a system of nomenclature for the stars. He was equally distinguished 

 for his stedfast adherence to the great principles of civil and religious 

 freedom from his earliest manhood. In tbe riots of Birmingham in 

 1791, he bravely strove against a furious mob to defend the houses of 

 Dr. Priestley and of Baskerville the printer ; and tbe same courage, 

 founded upon principle, led his betrothed wife at this perilous time 

 to refuse to utter the party-cry of * Church and King," when the 

 carriage in which she was riding was surrounded by a desperate mob. 

 From such parents the sons derived the qualities which have distin- 

 guished them as public men. 



After assisting his father several years in the management of the 

 school, which was subsequently removed to Hazel wood, and afterwards 

 to Bruce Castle, Tottenham ; and at the same time attending his 

 terms at Lincoln's Inn, Mr. Matthew Hill was in 1819 called to the 

 bar, and was soon engaged in an important state trial, the defence of 

 Major Cartwright on a charge of political conspiracy. The talent and 

 independence which he showed on this occasion gave him reputation, 

 but little profitable employment. The bold course which he had taken 

 was not then the road to professional advancement. He secured how- 

 ever the friendship of eminent men of Bentham, Brougham, Wilde, 

 and Denrnan. In 1827 he was associated with Mr. Brougham in the 

 formation and conduct of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful 

 Knowledge, and he was one of its most efficient members. In the first 

 reformed parliament Mr. Hill was returned as representative for Hull. 

 Soon after entering the House of Commons he took up the question of 

 Municipal Reform, and presented the first petition to parliament on 

 that subject. His labours however in this cause may have had an effect 

 in depriving him afterwords of his seat ; for at the next election.by the 

 votes of tbe 'freemen* of Hull, as distinguished from those of ordinary 

 voters under the Reform Act, another candidate was elected in his 

 tead. During the short period (not more than two years) that 

 Mr. Hill was a member of the House of Commons, he strongly sup- 

 ported tbe bill for allowing persons charged with felony to employ 

 counsel in their defence, and other amendments of the criminal law. 

 He moreover took an active part in obtaining the bill for the establish- 

 ment of the now flourishing colony of South Australia. 



On the erection of Birmingham into a municipal corporation, Mr. 

 Hill was appointed ite first Recorder; and in 1851 he was nominated 

 Commissioner of Bankruptcy for the Bristol district. On receiving 

 the latter appointment, Mr. Hill necessarily withdrew from private 

 practice as a barrister; and he has since devoted his time to the 

 discharge of his official duties, and to the general amendment of tho 

 law, particularly as regards the treatment of young offenders. His 

 charge* to the grand jury, as recorder of Birmingham, contain com- 

 prehensive and philosophical views not only of the subject of juvenile 

 crime, but of many questions relating to adult offenders, to the 

 general principle! and practice of criminal law, and to other means for 

 the prevention of crime. In the late movement for establishing 

 juvenile reformatories, Mr. Hill has token a leading part. In 1843, in 

 conjunction with Lord Brougham, Mr. James Stewart, Mr. Com- 

 missioner Fane, Mr. Pitt Taylor, and several other friends of Law 

 Keform, Mr. Hill took part in forming the Society for the Amendment 

 of the Law a society to which is due much of tbe credit of many of 

 the numerous improvements in tbe law which have lately been made, 

 and which, being still In full vigour, may become a still more power- 

 ful instrument of usefulness. In these labour* of hU later years 

 Mr. Hill has established a claim to present and future regard, especially 

 in his views of the questions of the treatment of criminal offenders 

 and of tbe reformation of juvenile delinquents. It is In a great 

 degree owing to Mr. Hill's unwearied pencverance in his official 



character, and by various well-timed and able publications, that these 

 subjects have at last come to occupy so much of tho attention of 

 statesmen and writers, and that juvenile reform has been raised fn.m 

 the position of a benevolent theory into a great practical, principle 

 demanding the co-operation of men of all parties to carry it through 

 its incipient difficulties. 



In that remarkable family union which has enabled the sons of tho 

 schoolmaster of Hazlewood to do so much in tiieir several walks 

 each assisting and sustaining tbe other Mr. Matthew Hill has derived 



great support in his views of the treatment of criminals from bis 

 brother, Mm FREDERICK HILL. That gentleman's valuable work ' On 

 Crime ' has become a text-book for legislators. This publication was 

 not tho result of merely speculative opinions, but of his long expe- 

 rience as Inspector of Prisons in Scotland. When Mr. Frederick Hill 

 was appointed to this office in 1835, almost every prison (the Glasgow 

 Bridewell and a few others being exceptions) was a scene of idleness, 

 drinking, gambling, and filth. Mr. Hill, by his diligence and firmness, 

 made them places of order, industry, and cleanliness. The principle 

 that parents should be held responsible for the maintenance of their 

 children when in prison, was first enforced by him in his official 

 reports from 1842 to 1848. That principle is now adopted as one of 

 the leading points of the Reformatory system. Upon other subjects 

 of social importance arising out of his views of crime, Mr. Frederick 

 Hill has thrown much light; such was his advocacy of a plan to 

 maintain the defence of the country by a voluntary principle, without 

 ballot or impressment. The Militia Bill of 1852, which embodies the 

 voluntary principle, was in port founded upon a pamphlet published 

 by Mr. Frederick Hill in 1848. 



* HILL, ROWLAND, the well-known author of the Cheap Postage 

 System, was born at Kidderminster, in December 1795, and was the 

 third son of Thomas Wright HilL In infancy he was feeble in health, 

 and had it not been for his mother's tender and judicious care he 

 would probably have never arrived at manhood. When still a little 

 child he gave indications of on original and inventive genius, and 

 showed a fondness for large numbers, which has since been turned to 

 so good an account as respects tbe millions of letters which now con- 

 stitute Post-Office Revenue. While lying on the rug before the fire 

 on account of a weakness of the spine, he would frequently be heard 

 counting to himself by tbe hour together, till his number sometime* 

 amounted to hundreds of thousands. At a very early age he sup- 

 ported himself chiefly by teaching mathematics in his father's school, 

 and in private families in the neighbourhood of Birmingham. While 

 still a young man he introduced into his father's school many improve- 

 ments not only in modes of instruction, but in general organisation, 

 particularly by carrying as far as practicable the principle of self- 

 government, and rendering school duties a for better preparation 

 than they had generally been for the real business of life. In this 

 work he was ably assisted by other members of his family ; and tho 

 plans of education which he. in part, originated, and which are known 

 as 'the Hozelwood System,' have since been more fully developed 

 and -greatly improved by his brother, Mr. Arthur Hill, of Bruce Cantlo, 

 Tottenham, to which place the school was, about five-and-twenty years 

 ago, removed. In 1833 Mr. Rowland Hill withdrew from the school 

 on account of his health, which had suffered from hard work, intending 

 after an interval of rest to return ; but during this time he received 

 the appointment of Secretary to the South Australian Commission, 

 where, in conjunction with several other gentlemen, be rendered 

 signal service in the foundation and organisation of the colony of 

 South Australia. 



About this time Mr. Hill had begun to turn his attention to tho 

 reformation of the many errors and abuses in the postal arrangements 

 of the kingdom. Early in 1837 he published his pamphlet entitled 

 ' Post-office Reform, it* importance and practicability,' and, after long, 

 hard, and persevering labour, he succeeded in introducing, on the 

 10th of January 1840, his plan of a low and uniform rate of postage ; 

 a plan which ever since has gone on maturing and extending ; so that, 

 beyond the limits of the British empire with its vast colonies, it is 

 now to be seen in operation, to a greater or less extent, in every part 

 of the civilised world. That part of Mr. Rowland Hill's plan which 

 consists in the use of postage stamps originated in a suggestion by 

 Mr. Charles Knight. 



During the anxious and critical period which preceded the final 

 adoption of his plan, Mr. Howlaud Hill was ably assisted by his wife, 

 who rose early morning after morning to write from his dictation, and 

 to render him that valuable aid which a common secretary could nut 

 have given. Inspired thus with courage to persevere amidst a 

 thousand difficulties, and receiving effective assistance from other 

 members of bis family, the plan was at length seriously regarded as 

 practicable, however sneered at and abused. 



Long and harassing examinations before a committee of the House 

 of Commons, with laborious preparations beforehand, had to be gone 

 through ; amidst little encouragement and much opposition. In the 

 House of Commons Mr. Wallace, late member for Qreenock, and Mr. 

 Warburton, late member for Bridport, were most prominent among 

 those who rendered Mr. Hill invaluable assistance. 



In 1841 the Tory party came into office, and in the following year 

 Mr. Rowland Hill had to leave the Treasury before his great reform 

 hod been completed, though not before the public had been fully 



