Hill Rev Rowland

Hill, Rev. Rowland, was born in 1744, being the third son of Sir Rowland Hill, Bart., the head of an old Shropshire family. As an undergraduate he began to roam about the country and preach to the poor, associating himself with Berridge and Whitfield. In 1774 he was ordained, and held for a time the cure of Kingston, Somerset, but the routine of the Establishment was irksome to him, and, though never dissociating himself from the Church, he struck out an independent line, came to London, and in 1784 opened an unlicensed place of worship - the Surrey Chapel. Here for nearly fifty years he worked on in his own eccentric way. He was, moreover, an ardent supporter of the Sunday School movement, of the London Missionary Society, the Bible Society, and the Tract Society, and he wrote a volume of Hymns that still has a hold on popular affection, besides several controversial books of less merit. So great faith had he in the newly invented practice of vaccination that he operated on no fewer than 40,000 persons. His death occurred in 1833.