SirJohn Edward Gray Hill (1839–1914) was an English solicitor specialised inmaritime law. He was also known as an art collector and travel writer.
He was son of Arthur Hill of Tottenham, born there on 18 September 1839. His father was headmaster ofBruce Castle School, where he was educated.[1] His mother was Ellen Tilt.Lewin Hill andGeorge Birkbeck Norman Hill were his brothers. His uncle was postal reformerRowland Hill.[2]
Hill, who in later life also used the surname Gray-Hill, entered the legal profession. He took his articles with Gregory, Rowcliffes & Co. of London, and was admitted a solicitor in 1863. He joined theLiverpool law firm that was later known asHill Dickinson in 1864, and became its senior partner, when it traded as Hill, Dickinson, Dickinson, Hill & Roberts of Water Street.[1] In 1868, he replaced Andrew Tucker Squarey as secretary of the Liverpool Steamship Owners' Association, a position he held for 40 years.[3] He was also the secretary of the North Atlantic Steam Traffic Conference, another grouping of shipowners, and sought to defend the Britishmerchant navy from international marine courts being established that were under US influence.[4]
Involved with both theInternational Law Society and theInternational Maritime Committee, Hill supported theLiberal Unionists from the mid-1880s while in politics.[5] A Unionist associate, in stronglyHome Ruler Liverpool, was James Willcox Alsop (1846–1921), another leading solicitor.[6] Hill held a number of directorships in insurance companies. In 1903, he became the President of theLaw Society of England and Wales, and in 1904 he was knighted.[1][7]
At the end of his life, Hill took an interest in Jewish settlement in Palestine. TheZionist campaigner Solomon Alfred Adler, son ofHermann Adler, who died in 1910, was active in Liverpool. Hill made a speech "The Jews of Jerusalem" at the opening of the Palestine Exhibition in Liverpool in 1912, and talked on "Zionism, Jerusalem and the Holy Land" to the Liverpool Jewish Literary Society in 1913.[8][9] At the end of 1913, he contradicted the views ofJohn Walter Gregory on the aridity of Palestine.[10][11]
Mere Hall,Oxton, Birkenhead was built for Hill byEdmund Kirby, around 1880. Now it is a Grade II listed building, divided into flats.[1][12] From the mid-1880s, his art collection was housed there: it was reviewed inThe Athenaeum in 1886, which noted works byThomas Gainsborough,Joshua Reynolds andGeorge Romney.[13] He resided at 1, Mitre Court Buildings, in the Temple, London.[1]
A patron of the arts, Hill supportedEdward Robert Hughes, and bought works of Liverpool artists including the marine painterWilliam Joseph Julius Caesar Bond.[14][15]
Hill owned a house and land nearJerusalem, and land in Eastern Palestine.[1] Travelling annually to Palestine from 1887, he bought land there from 1889. He later built a house on it, for his painter wifeCaroline, at a location on the Jerusalem–'Anata road: it was described in handbooks as "Mr Gray-Hill's villa". The Gray Hills gave its address as Ras Ab(o)u Kharoub.[5][16][17] Thecave of Nicanor was discovered near the house at the beginning of the 20th century.[18]
Sir John Gray Hill died on 19 June 1914.[5] He and his wife had been willing to sell the Mount Scopus estate since 1911, when he had become ill.[19]
The estate was sold to a group who acted as founders of theHebrew University of Jerusalem. The house on the estate has been identified as the probable source of an allusion inThe Old New Land (1902) byTheodor Herzl.[20]Norman Bentwich, biographer ofJudah Leon Magnes, recounts how Magnes and his wife saw the house and garden and considered it suitable as a site for a university.[21] Bentwich visited the Gray-Hills at their house in 1914, hearing Sir John's concerns about town planning and slums in Jerusalem.[22]
There was, however, another site under consideration for the university, atJabel Mukaber. It was only in 1913 that Menachem Sheinkin representing potential backers fromOdessa reported toMenachem Ussishkin that the Mount Scopus site was preferable. Sheinkin was able to get in touch with Hill through Benjamin Ivri ofHaifa, who knew the family. Vying between Zionist groups meant the Odessa money was not called upon.[19]
The purchase of land on Mount Scopus was piecemeal and used funds fromIsaac Leib Goldberg, and was carried out byArthur Ruppin on behalf of theWorld Zionist Organization. Details were agreed with the Hill family in 1914, beforeWorld War I intervened, but the sale took effect in 1918,[8][19][23][24] January 31 for the paid sum of £6,500.[25]
Hill travelled, especially in theregion of Syria, and publishedWith the Beduins (1891), illustrated by photographs taken by his wife.[1][26][27] He visited the independent missionary toTransjordan William Lethaby (1837–1909) atAl-Karak, in 1890.[28][29] In 1891 he visitedSahab.[30] He wrote for thePalestine Exploration Fund journal about journeys east of theJordan River (1895), and toPetra (1896).[31]
In 1896 Hill first published on the siteQasr Al-Kharanah.[32] He explored in 1897 the mouth ofWadi Mujib on theDead Sea.[33] Details of his travels, and of those ofLouis-Hugues Vincent in the same areas, appeared in theProvincia Arabia (1904–1909, 3 vols.) ofRudolf Ernst Brünnow andAlfred von Domaszewski.[34]
Hill's travels were restricted by local security issues, and he had to abandon plans to visitQusayr 'Amra.[35] An earlier journey to Petra, in 1890, had resulted in Hill and his wife being detained for ten days by Arabs asking for payment.[36] Hill's successful Petra journey of 1896 was his fourth attempt.[37] TheBedouin considered that more casual tourism in the area, which was being supported by the central government and plans for theHejaz railway, threatened a traditional pattern of camel hire and pilgrim travel.[38]
In 1903 Caroline Gray Hill published inThe Windsor Magazine an article "A Journey by the Way of the Philistines", about a route starting inEl Qantara, Egypt and passing throughArish and what is now theGaza Strip, toBethlehem. She related that this journey had been made twice with her husband, and once without him. The article is illustrated by her own paintings and photographs, and mentions their guide George Mabbedy.[39]
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Hill married in 1864 Caroline Emily Hardy (1843–1924), daughter of George Drake Hardy of Tottenham. A painter known asCaroline Emily Gray Hill, or Lady Gray Hill, she had works—landscapes of Palestine—shown in a solo retrospective exhibition "The Lady and the Desert" atTicho House in 2002.[1][40][41][42]
The couple had no children.[42] John's executor wasSir Norman Hill.[43] He was the son of John's brother George Birkbeck Hill, and a solicitor of Hill, Dickinson & Co.[40]
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