Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hill, William (1619-1667)

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
1389607Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 26 — Hill, William (1619-1667)1891Warwick William Wroth

HILL, WILLIAM (1619–1667), classical scholar, born in 1619 at Curdworth, Warwickshire, was the son of Blackleech Hill, an attorney, and afterwards bailiff of Hemlingford hundred in Warwickshire. In October 1634, when aged fifteen, he entered Merton College, Oxford, where he was made a post-master, and in 1639 a fellow. He graduated M.A. in 1641, and later in life received the degree of D.D. from the university of Dublin. On leaving Oxford about 1640, Hill became master of the free school at Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, and brought it into credit. He afterwards removed to London, and there practised medicine with success. Wood (who, however, had not seen the book) says he epitomised some of the works of Lazarus Riverius, the physician. In 1658 Hill published an edition of Dionysius Periegetes, London, 8vo; other editions appeared in 1659, 1663, 1679, &c. Wood says the edition was used ‘in many schools and by most juniors of the university of Oxon.’ Leaving London to resume teaching, Hill became chief master of the school of St. Patrick's, Dublin. At the Restoration he was, as a parliamentarian, removed from this post, and went to Finglas, near Dublin, where he became minister, and kept a boarding-school for the children of gentlemen. He died in November 1667 ‘of a pestilential fever’ (which was also fatal to most of his family), and was buried on 29 Nov. in Finglas Church. Hill married when at Sutton Coldfield the well-to-do daughter of ‘a plain countryman.’ She died about 1641, and Hill, when practising medicine in London, married (according to Wood) ‘a young lass, daughter of one Mr. Burges, a physician, who brought him forth a child that lived within the seventh month after marriage.’

Another William Hill of Merton College became, according to Wood, a bible clerk of Merton in 1647, and afterwards a tale-bearer to the parliamentary visitors. This man obtained a living, but was ejected at the Restoration, and falling in with a number of fanatics, became privy to a plot to seize the king at Whitehall. He turned informer, and by his means the conspirators were arrested 29 Oct. 1662, and four of them were hanged at Tyburn, 23 Dec. Hill was rewarded with a benefice, which he did not long enjoy. Wood says he published a pamphlet giving a ‘narrative of the plot.’

[Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss), iii. 800–2; Chalmers's Biog. Dict.; Brit. Mus. Cat.]

W. W.