1744–1833

Introduction

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Born: Au­gust 23, 1744, Hawk­stone, Shrop­shire, Eng­land.

Died: Ap­ril 11, 1833, Sur­rey Cha­pel House.

Buried: Sur­rey Cha­pel, Lon­don, Eng­land.

portrait
National Portrait Gallery

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Biography

Hill was edu­cat­ed at Shrews­bu­ry Gram­mar School, Eton, and St. John’s Col­lege, Cam­bridge (BA 1769).

Taking Ho­ly Or­ders, he was for a time cur­ate of King­ston, near Taun­ton.

Leaving there, but with­out re­nounc­ing his Or­ders or his con­nect­ion with the Church of Eng­land, he served as an itin­er­ant preach­er for twelve years, most­ly in Wilt­shire, Glou­ces­ter­shire, So­mer­set­shire, and Lon­don.

At Wot­ton-un­der-Edge, he built a cha­pel where he oft­en preached. He al­so opened the Sur­rey Cha­pel in Lon­don in 1783; it was there he min­is­tered for near­ly 50 years.

Hill took great in­ter­est in ev­an­gel­ism and mis­sions, and helped found the Lon­don Mis­sion­ary So­ci­ety. He was al­so on the first com­mit­tee of the Re­li­gious Tract So­ci­ety.

Works

He was the au­thor of sev­er­al prose works, plus:

Sources

Except for his 1790 child­ren’s Hymns, Hill’s works do not show the au­thor­ship of the in­di­vi­du­al hymns. Those in the list be­low are ge­ne­ral­ly at­trib­ut­ed to him.

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