Family and Education

b. c.1552, yst. s. of Richard Hills of London and Southwark. educ. L. Inn 1569, called 1579. m. Elizabeth, da. of William Phillips, merchant taylor, of London, 2s.

Offices Held

Biography

Hill was returned to Parliament a few months after his father’s death by the borough patron Sir George Carey. through an unascertained connexion, perhaps a member of the Fleetwood or Sotherton families. He was probably the Mr. Hill named to committees on Lambourn almshouses (22 Mar. 1589) and for a declaration of war on Spain (29 Mar.). Very likely he shared his father’s interest in charitable endowments—he once asked the Merchant Taylors’ Company for permission to see the clauses relating to a bequest of some property to them for the foundation of an almshouse. He was unable to provide for his own elder son, who, in 1596, asked the company to grant him £10 ‘by way of anticipation’ of his grandfather’s bequest, to enable him to take up the study of the law, since he had not the means to pay his admission charge or to provide himself with books. In 1595 Hills was appointed counsel to the Merchant Taylors at an annual fee of 40s. Twelve years later, on 8 Aug. 1607, the company granted his request to be paid five years’ fees in advance as ‘he is grown into some want’. This is the last that is heard of him.1

His career should be distinguished from that of his nephew and contemporary, a member of the Skinners’ Company, who died in about 1636.2

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: Patricia Hyde

Notes

• 1. Vis. London (Harl. Soc. cix. cx), 50; London Inquisitions Post Mortem (Index Lib. xxxvi), 93; PCC 36 Drury, 3 Rutland; D’Ewes, 451, 454; C. M. Clode, Mems. Guild of Merchant Taylors, 365; Early Hist. Merchant Taylors, ii. 235.
• 2. Vis. London (Harl. Soc. xv), 385; PCC 77 Pile.