Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol II (1901).djvu/434

 under the Church Missionary Society. The affairs of the society's mission on the Niger were in a position of some complexity. In the hope of solving the difficulties the archbishop of Canterbury (Benson) sent Hill to the Niger as his commissioner, and as the designated successor of Bishop Samuel Adjai Crowther [q. v.], the society appointing him director of the Niger mission. He discharged a delicate task with skill, and on his return home was consecrated bishop in Western Equatorial Africa on 29 June 1893. He left for West Africa in the November following, fell ill soon after landing at Lagos, and died there on 5 Jan. 1895. His wife, Lucilla Leachman, survived him but a few hours.

 HILL, STEPHEN JOHN (1809–1891), colonial governor, born on 10 June 1809, was the son of Major William Hill by his wife Sarah. He entered the army in 1823, became lieutenant in 1825, and captain in 1842. In 1849 he commanded an expedition which proceeded eighty miles up the Gambia. On 6 May he stormed and destroyed the fortified town of Bambacoo, and on the following day attacked and partially destroyed the fortified town of Keenung, besides defeating the enemy on the plains of Quenella. He also commanded a detachment of the 2nd and 3rd West India regiments in a successful attack by the British and French naval and land forces under Commodore Fanshawe on the pirates of the island of Basis, Jeba River, West Africa. For this service he received the thanks of the lords of the admiralty and the brevet rank of major. On 1 April 1851 he was appointed governor and commander-in-chief of the Gold Coast. In 1852 a poll-tax was imposed on the natives with the consent of the protected chiefs, to assist in defraying the cost of administration. A local force was raised for the defence of the colony under the designation of the Gold Coast corps. On 6 Nov. 1854 Hill was nominated lieutenant-governor of Sierra Leone. He remained there until 1859, undertaking two successful expeditions up the Great Scarcies River in January 1858 and February 1859. In July 1860 he returned as governor-in-chief, remaining until 21 July 1862, when ill-health compelled him to return to England, leaving his son, Lieutenant-colonel William Hill, as acting governor. His second term of administration was marked by the annexation of British Quiah in April 1861 and British Sherboro in November 1861.

On 9 Feb. 1863 he assumed the office of captain-general and governor-in-chief of the Leeward and Caribbee Islands, where he remained until 1869, when he was removed to Newfoundland. Entering on his duties on 29 Sept. he remained there until 1876, when he retired from active service.

Hill was appointed colonel of the 2nd West India regiment on 21 Nov. 1854. He was nominated C.B. in 1860 and K.C.M.G. in 1874. He died in London at 72 Sutherland Avenue, Maida Vale, on 20 Oct. 1891. He was twice married: first, on 30 Nov. 1829, to Sarah Ann, daughter of William Vesey Munnings, chief justice of the Bahamas; and, secondly, on 3 Aug. 1871, to Louisa Gordon, daughter of John Sheil (d. 6 March 1847), chief justice of Antigua. He left issue by his first wife.

 HILLARY, WILLIAM (1771–1847), founder of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, born in 1771 of an old Wensleydale family, was the second son of Richard Hillary, third but eventually only surviving son and heir of John Hillary of Birkrigg. His mother was Hannah, daughter of George Wynne. His elder brother Richard was a member of the House of Assembly in Jamaica, where he died unmarried in 1803.

William Hillary was appointed equerry to the Duke of Sussex, with whom he spent two years in Italy, returning to England in 1800; and, having come into large property both by marriage and inheritance, he, upon the renewal of the war with France in 1803, raised at his own expense, and many years commanded, the First Essex Legion of infantry and cavalry, amounting to 1,400 men, the largest force then offered by any private individual for the defence of his country. In this cause he expended over 20,000l., and, in consideration of this and other services, he was created a baronet on 8 Nov. 1805. Three years later, owing to a heavy loss of property in the West Indies, Sir William left Essex and settled at Fort Anne, near Douglas, in the Isle of Man. The large number of wrecks that he witnessed, culminating in 1822, when the government cutter Vigilance, the naval brig Racehorse, and many smaller vessels were destroyed off the Isle of Man, directed his attention to the question of saving life at 