Author: Hill, Brian
Biography:
HILL, Brian (1756-1831: findmypast.com)
He was baptised on 15 Mar. 1756 at Hodnet, Shropshire, the youngest of eight sons of Sir Rowland Hill, first Baronet Hill of Hawkstone (1705-83), and his wife Jane Broughton (d 1773), an heiress, who had married in 1732. From Queen’s College, Oxford (BA 1780, MA 1781), he entered the church (deacon 1779, priest 1780). He never married but served small local congregations, initially at Moreton Corbet and at Loppington, before he resigned to live quietly in Weston-under-Redcastle and to preach at the chapel there. He wrote about education and founded schools in Weston; he also published a collection of sermons in 1822. Appointed Chaplain to the Earl of Leven and Melville, he dedicated his one travel book, Observations . . . in a Journey through Sicily and Calabria (1792), to the Earl and Countess; it was based on his experience of an extended tour made in 1791 with his eldest brother, Sir Richard Hill (1733-1808), the second baronet. The work listed here, Henry and Acasto (1786), was something of an accidental publication. His brother Richard, who wrote a preface recommending it for its piety, had had it published without permission, which in a preface he confessed that he thought would be denied. Later editions were needed to incorporate revisions by the author. Rev. Brian Hill died at Wem, Shropshire, on 14 Apr. 1831 and was buried in the churchyard at Weston on 22 Apr. The GM obituary is at pains to stress his orthodox Arminianism: two of his elder brothers, Richard and Rowland (q.v.), had been vocal Calvinistic Methodists. (findmypast.com 7 June 2022; ancestry.com 7 June 2022; “Hill, Sir Richard,” ODNB 7 June 2022; GM Aug. 1831, 185; CCEd 7 June 2022) HJ
Other Names:
- the Rev. Brian Hill