Reverend Joseph Hill (1831-1915)

According to Crockford’s Clerical Directory of 1865, Rev Joseph Hill was the Curate of Edwinstowe, near Ollerton, in Notttinghamshire. He graduated B.A. from Worcester College, Oxford, in 1857. The same year he became a Deacon, and the following year he was ordained a priest by the Bishop of Lincoln.

A later edition of Crockford’s gives a fuller picture of his life. He was Curate of Edwinstowe from 1857-1862, and then Curate of Old West in Huntingdonshire from 1862 to 1864. From 1864 to 1874 he was Rector of Monnington-on-Wye. In 1874 he became Rector of Wimblington, Cambridgeshire. The living, which had a population of 1089, was in the gift of Sir T. Peyton, Bart., and the tithes were worth on average £1615 per annum, with 7 acres of glebe and house. Rev Hill held this living until 1904. In 1914, the last time he appears in Crockford’s Clerical Directory, his address was Firlands, Canford Cliffs, Bournemouth, so he is probably the Joseph Hill whose death, aged 84, was registered in the district of Poole in Dorset in the September quarter of 1915.

According to Alumni Oxonienses: 1715-1886 (published 1891), Joseph Hill was the second son of Joseph Hill, gentleman, of the city of Hereford. He matriculated on 12 June 1851, at the age of 19, so he was born in or about 1832. The censuses show he was born at Holmer in Herefordshire, and the International Genealogical Index records the christening of a Joseph Hill, son of Joseph and Jane Hill, at Holmer on 29 August 1831.

Photographed by Camille Silvy on 16 March 1861.