famous. In 1825 it was again removed, and further off, this time being taken to Bruce Castle, Tottenham, where the family yet resides. Rowland and his brother, Matthew Davenport Hill, afterwards Recorder of Birmingham, who took part in the management of the school, went with it, and personally Rowland Hill's connection with our town may be said to have ceased. Early in 1837 Mr. Hill published his proposed plans of Post Office reform, but which for a long time met with no favour from either of the great political parties, or in official quarters, where, it has been said, he was snubbed as a would-be interloper, and cursed as "a fellow from Birmingham coming to teach people their business"—
"All office doors were closed against him—hard
All office heads were closed against him too,
'He had but worked, like others, for reward,'
'The thing was all a dream' It would not do."
In 1839, more than 2,000 petitions were presented to Parliament in favour of Mr. Hill's plans, and eventually they were adopted and became law by the 3rd and 4th Vict., cap. 96. The new postage law by which the uniform rate of fourpence per letter was tried as an experiment, came into operation on the 5th of December, 1839, and on the 10th January, 1840, the reduced uniform rate of 1d. per letter of half-an-ounce weight was commenced. Under the new system the privilege of franking letters enjoyed by members of Parliament was abolished, facilities of prepayment were afforded by the introduction of postage stamps, double postage was levied on letters not prepaid, and arrangements were made for the registration of letters. Mr. Hill received an appointment in the Treasury, but in 1841, he was told his services were no longer required This flagrant injustice caused great indignation, and a national testimonial of £15,000 was presented to him June 17, 1846. On a change of Government Mr. Hill was appointed Secretary to the Postmaster General, and, in 1854, Secretary to the Post Office, a position which he retained until failing health caused him to resign in March, 1864, the Treasury awarding him for life his salary of £2,000 per year. In the same year he received a Parliamentary grant of £20,000, and in 1860, ho was made a K.C.B., other honours from Oxford, &c., following. Sir Rowland was presented with the freedom of the City by the London Court of Common Council, June 6, 1879, the document being contained in a suitable gold casket. It was incidentally mentioned in the course of the proceedings, that at the time Sir Rowland Hill's system was inaugurated the annual amount of correspondence was 79 millions, or three letters per head of the population; while then it exceeded 1,000 millions of letters, 100 millions of postcards, and 320 millions of newspapers, and the gross receipt in respect of it was £6,000,000 sterling. Sir Rowland Hill died Aug. 27, 1879, leaving but one son, "Pearson Hill," late of the Post Office.
Hollins, George—The first appointed organist of the Town Hall (in 1834), having been previously organist at St. Paul's, in the graveyard of which church he was buried in 1841, the funeral being attended by hundreds of friends, musicians, and singers of the town and neighbourhood.
Holt, Thomas Littleton.—A Press man, whose death (Sept. 14, 1879) at the age of 85, severed one of the very few remaining links connecting the journalism of the past with the present. It was to him that the late Mr. Dickens owed his introduction to Dr. Black, then the editor of the Morning Chronicle. Mr. Holt was proprietor of the Iron Times, which started during the railway mania. When his friend Leigh Hunt was imprisoned for libelling the Prince Regent, he was the first to visit him. He took an active part in popularising cheap literature, and it was greatly owing to him that the adver-
