Notes
The Bradford Grammar School website (see References) states: 'John Hill was the grandson of a former Mayor of Bradford who was also named John Hill. Born of humble parentage in Thornton, the elder John had started out as factory boy. He went into business on his own account when he was 28 and prospered, founding the worsted-making firm John Hill & Sons
of Apsley Mills, Great Horton. He was a prominent citizen of Bradford, active in public life as a J.P. and Alderman, and he served as Mayor 1881-2. His son Thomas Rawson Hill helped his father run the business, and he married Sarah Jane Robertshaw, the daughter of a prominent Bradford yarn manufacturer. John Robertshaw Hill was the fourth of their nine children, but their first son. Two of his siblings died in childhood. He went to Bradford Grammar School in 1893 when he was ten, and he studied there for the next nine years. In Form Vth Classical in 1899 he came near the bottom of the class in most subjects but he was first in Natural Science. As there was no Science form at this time he moved into VIth Modern and his best results were in Physics, Geology and Chemistry. In 1902 he obtained seven Higher Certificate passes, with a distinction in Physics, and he was elected to a
Science Exhibition at St. John’s College, Cambridge. He had been a regular player in the First XV since the 1899-1900 season as a ‘speedy centre’ who was able to tackle well and also knew when to pass to his wing man. In 1901-2 he captained the team, playing alongside the future England international Steinthal. He also played for the First XI.
At Cambridge Hill achieved a First Class in the Natural Sciences Tripos, Part I. In the ‘Cambridge Letter’ in The Bradfordian (December 1904) it was reported ‘he was still the terror of those Rugger teams which go forth to play with John’s. This is in the intervals of his researches into the secrets of Nature in the Varsity Chemistry Laboratory, studies which are spoken of with bated breath and hard-held nostrils by his less learned fellows.’ He graduated in 1906 with Second Class Honours, and he remained at Cambridge on a Hutchinson Research Studentship in Natural Sciences, before he went to the Imperial (now the Commonwealth) Institute in London. John was a Chemical analysist. He later worked for the
Malay States government, where he completed a study on the causes and cure of the tropical disease beri-beri. In 1913 he was elected a Fellow of the Institute of Chemistry.
Hill’s work was interrupted by the outbreak of war, which occurred during a six month furlough to England. He had served in the Malay State Volunteers, and he volunteered for the 1st Bradford Pals in September 1914. He was aged 31, weighed less than 10 stones and was 5 feet 7 inches tall. He continued work on his research when his training permitted and published his final paper in 1915. Then in July 1915 the Army asked for men with experience
in Chemistry and Hill was transferred with several others to the Royal Engineers Special Company M. Within a week he was sent to France. All these ‘chemists in spectacles’, as Churchill dubbed them, were given the rank of Corporal and were required for the British Army’s new chemical warfare units. They first saw action at Loos in the autumn. The Special
Companies were expanded into the R.E. Special Brigade, and on 29th April 1916 Hill was promoted to Second Lieutenant. He was killed in a tragic accident near Vaulx, south of Arras, while preparing for an attack. Men from three RE Special Companies and two divisional ammunition columns were moving into position 250 Livens Projectors, simple but effective
mortars which fired containers of liquid gas. Despite safety precautions, a stray shell detonated a wagon carrying the propellant charges, which in turn attracted more German artillery fire. In the resulting conflagration forty-four men from the three Gas Companies were killed, including Hill with twenty men from his ‘P’ Company. Their bodies were buried in
Beaulencourt Cemetery, near Bapaume.'