A staunch conservative in politics. Hill, after two unsuccessful attempts, at Wolverhampton in 1861 and at Coventry in March 1868, was elected for Coventry in December 1868. He sat in the house for thirty-two years — representing Coventry (1868–74), West Staffordshire (1874–85), and the Kingswinford division of Staffordshire (1885–1900). He was created a privy councillor in 1892. One of the earliest supporters of the policy afterwards known as tariff reform, he pressed in 1869 for an inquiry on behalf of the silk weavers of Coventry into the effect of the commercial treaty with France, and in speeches delivered in 1869 and 1870 showed the weakness of Great Britain's position in endeavouring to maintain a free trade policy against the operation of foreign tariffs.
In 1881 Staveley Hill went to Canada to study its suitability as a centre for emigration. He formed a large cattle ranch seventy miles south of Calgary, then in the North-West Territory, and since included in the province of Alberta. To this ranch, which was called New Oxley, he often returned, and he published a volume descriptive of the life among the foothills of the Rocky Mountains entitled 'From Home to Home: Autumn Wanderings in the North West, 1881–1884' (1885), illustrated by his wife. Toronto University made him an hon. LL.D. in 1892. He died at his residence, Oxley Manor, Wolverhampton, 28 June 1905. Staveley Hill married (1) on 6 Aug. 1864 Katherine Crumpston Florence (d. 14 May 1868), eldest daughter of Miles Ponsonby of Hale Hall, Cumberland; and (2) in 1876 Mary Frances (d. 1897), daughter of Francis Baird of St. Petersburg. A portrait of him by Desanges belongs to his only child, Henry Staveley Staveley-Hill (b. 22 May 1865), who succeeded him as recorder of Banbury and became in 1905 M.P. for the Kingswinford division.
Besides the volume mentioned above Staveley Hill wrote a treatise on the 'Practice of the Court of Probate' (1859).
[The Times, 30 June 1905; Foster, Alumni Oxonienses; Foster, Men at the Bar; Men and Women of the Time, 15th ed. 1899; Dod's Parliamentary Companion, 1900; private information.]
HILL, ALSAGER HAY (1839–1906), social reformer, born on 1 Oct. 1839 at Gressonhall Hall, Norfolk, was second son in a family of five sons and six daughters of John David Hay Hill, lord of the manor of Gressonhall, by his wife Margaret, second daughter of Ebenezer John Collett, of Hemel Hempsted, M.P. from 1814 to 1830. He was educated at Brighton College (1850–4) and at Cheltenham College (1854–7), and while a schoolboy published at Cheltenham a small volume of poems, 'Footprints of Life,' in 1857. Two years later he competed unsuccessfully for the prize for the Burns centenary poem. In 1857 he obtained an exhibition at Caius College, Cambridge, migrating as scholar to Trinity Hall, where he graduated LL.B. in 1862. At Cambridge he started the 'Chit Chat' debating club, which still exists, and was treasurer of the Union. Becoming a student of the Inner Temple on 3 Oct. 1860, he was called to the bar on 26 Jan. 1864. He joined the south-eastern circuit, but soon devoted his energies to journalism and to literature, interesting himself especially in poor law and labour questions, and doing active work as almoner to the Society for the Relief of Distress in the East of London. In letters to the press during 1868 Hill called attention to weaknesses in the poor law, and urged a more scientific classification of paupers (The Times, 9 Jan. 1868). His pamphlet on 'Our Unemployed,' prepared as a competition essay for the National Association for the Promotion of Social Science, and published in 1867, was one of the first to call public attention to the problem of unemployment, and to suggest a national system of labour registration. Other pamphlets followed: 'Lancashire Labour and the London Poor' in 1871; 'Impediments to the Circulation of Labour, with a Few Suggestions for their Removal,' in 1873; 'The Unemployed in Great Cities, with Suggestions for the Better Organisation of Labourers,' in 1877, and 'Vagrancy' in 1881. Hill was a pioneer of the system of labour exchanges in England, and in 1871 established in Greek Street, Soho, 'The Employment Inquiry Office and Labour Registry,' which was subsequently transferred to 15 Russell Street, Covent Garden, as the 'Central Labour Exchange, Employment, Emigration, and Industrial Intelligence Office.' There as director Hill gave advice to applicants for assistance. In connection with the exchange and at the same offices he founded and edited in 1871 the 'Labour News,' which became an organ of communication between masters and men seeking work in all parts of the kingdom. Hill had agents and correspondents in the chief industrial centres, who sent notes on the condition of the
