HILL, John IV

John Hill’s parentage cannot be established beyond reasonable doubt, but his later career in the borough of Bridgwater suggests that he may have been the son of the draper and tailor Robert Hill, who served the borough as reeve in 1411 and as constable in 1417, and who attested the borough’s parliamentary returns in 1426 and 1435.5 Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1400-45, 561, 587; C219/13/4, 14/5. Hill lived in the town’s ward between the church and the bridge, but he also owned property in the neighbouring ward of St. Mary Street.6 Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1445-68, 732, 734, 768. Outside Bridgwater he held a tenement in the manor of Huntspill jointly with his wife, Mabel.7 Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1400-45, 543, 623, 629. Hill’s ward was among the wealthiest in the town, and his payments in tallage for the repair of the parish church suggest that he himself had significant resources at his disposal.8 Ibid. 732-42. If he entered his putative father’s business, he may have traded on a somewhat lesser scale, for it was as a mere ‘chapman’ that in 1456 he was pardoned for his non-appearance in connexion with a debt of £29 3s. 4d. owed to the London mercer John Goldwell.9 CPR, 1452-61, p. 269.

Hill first held public office in 1423, when he served as one of the reeves of Bridgwater, but he then withdrew into private life until 1438, when he was chosen as common bailiff by his fellow burgesses. In the following years he evidently continued to have some involvement in the administration of the borough, as he was among the men dispatched to Taunton in 1448-9 for the hanging of a felon.10 Bridgwater Bor. Archs. 1445-68, 757. His borough offices aside, Hill also played an active role in the life of his parish. In 1445 he served as warden of the chantry of the Holy Cross in the parish church of Bridgwater, and it may have been in that capacity that he was chosen as one of the collectors of the tallage raised for the repair of the church that year. Hill may have been a devotee of the cult of St George, as he maintained a particular connexion with the saint’s chapel.11 Ibid. 729, 794, 839. Hill’s service both as a chantry warden and local official may have played a part in his inclusion among the feoffees chosen by William Poulet and the prominent Bridgwater burgess William Gascoigne II* to undertake the provision of a chantry priest to sing for the souls of the Poulet and Gascoigne families at the altar of the Holy Trinity.12 Ibid. 777-83.

In 1450, Hill – by now a man of some administrative experience – was chosen to represent his neighbours in the third of a series of three stormy Parliaments summoned over the course of less than two years. The assembly to which he was elected convened not merely in the aftermath of the popular rebellions which had swept southern England that summer, but also the devastating loss of the last English possessions in Normandy. Nothing is known of Hill’s part in the proceedings, but it is likely that he travelled to Westminster with some sense of trepidation.

During his final decade Hill led the life of a respected member of his community, often acting as feoffee for his fellow burgesses or mediating in their disputes.13 Ibid. 747, 772, 802, 807-8, 810. He now also took up his only documented office under the Crown, when in late December 1455 he was appointed collector of customs in Bridgwater and its district, an appointment which he probably owed to the influence of the joint lord of the borough, Richard, duke of York, who at that time was establishing his control over the Westminster administration as Protector. It is indicative of the partisan nature of his appointment that he was dismissed from office just weeks after the Yorkist treasurer, Henry, Viscount Bourgchier, had been replaced by John Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury, in October 1456. Hill held no further Crown office in the remaining years of Henry VI’s reign, which saw the government increasingly dominated by the partisans of the formidable queen, Margaret of Anjou, but he did continue to play his part in the life of Bridgwater, where in 1457 he received 13s. 4d. for the fee of Alexander Hody*, who had provided legal counsel to the commonalty, and where that year he served as steward of the guild merchant.14 Ibid. 797. The precise date of Hill’s death is unknown. He last appears as party to a land transaction in January 1460, but he was dead by 15 Apr. 1461.15 Ibid. 810, 811, 820. It is unclear whether Hill had any descendants apart from his daughter, but the John Hill, also a Bridgwater cloth merchant, who married Thomasina, a sister of John Stalenge, may have been his son. He made his will on 18 May 1481 and died shortly afterwards, his wife surviving him until 1483: CP40/840, rot. 108d; Som. Med. Wills (Som. Rec. Soc. xvi), 233-4, 246-8.