Thomas Wright Hill
Encyclopedia
Thomas Wright Hill was a mathematician and schoolmaster. He is credited as inventing the single transferable vote
in 1819. His son, Rowland Hill
, famous as the originator of the modern postal system, introduced STV in 1840 into the world's first public election, for the Adelaide
City Council
, in which the principle of proportional representation was applied.
In 1791, Thomas Wright Hill courageously tried to save the apparatus of Dr Joseph Priestley
from a mob in the Birmingham 'Church and King' riots
of 1791 — the offer was declined.
He was interested in astronomy, being a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and in computers, as is shown by a letter of his to Charles Babbage
, dated March 23, 1836, among the Babbage manuscripts at the British Library, returning some logarithm tables that he had borrowed and adding "How happy I shall be when I can see such a work verified and enlarged by your divine machine".
moving it to Hill Top, Gough Street. In 1819, it moved again to a new purpose-built school designed by Rowland at Hazelbrook called Hazelwood on Hagley Road in Edgbaston
.
From the start the school seems to have been out of the ordinary. In its original prospectus Hill says that "he will make it his study to excite [his pupils'] reasoning powers, and to induce in them habits of voluntary application ... he will always endeavour, by kindness and patience, to secure for himself their affection and esteem"; perhaps not revolutionary aims nowadays, but this was more than 25 years before Thomas Arnold
became headmaster of Rugby
or Charles Dickens
wrote Nicholas Nickleby. It is also noteworthy that he was offering "instruction in art and science". How many schools at that date would have thought of including science in their curriculum?
At Hazelwood School, with his sons now bearing a full share in its running, it became a school in which the rules were formed by a committee of the boys, elected by the boys, and enforced by the boys' own law court. Whether or not that is a good way to run a school, the amazing thing is that it existed at all at that time.
In 1827 a London branch of the school was opened at Bruce Castle
, Tottenham, and a few years later Hazelwood was sold, but by that time it had been taken over almost entirely by his sons.
He does not seem to have disapproved of a little political trickery, provided the right side was doing it. Writing to his wife, dated May 11, 1831, about the "patriotic fellows of Haddington" including her brother, he says "Their district has five boroughs which choose a member of parliament by one [delegate] from each borough. Haddington was firm and Jedburgh was firm in the good cause. Dunbar was Rotten and the same was North Berwick. Lauder had seven good men in the council out of sixteen. By excellent management the men of Haddington brought away two councilmen from Lauder and entertained them until the business was accomplished, so that now three delegates out of the five are sound reformers ... It is a glorious victory and a proud thing for us to have so near a relative bearing such a part in it".
In spite of radical views, he evidently thought well of King George III, for in a letter dated Feb 9th 1820, just after George IV's accession, he wrote to his son Matthew "How did your taste accord with bell-ringing and huzzas at the King's proclamation? To me, connected as it was with the death of our late aged and virtuous monarch it was revolting, even to hear of; I saw nothing of the pageantry".
:
Hill's grandson (and Rowland's nephew) George Birkbeck Norman Hill
wrote, "The plan of election had been devised by his [Rowland's] father who … was strongly in favour of the representation of minorities."
In 1821, Hill used an informal version of proportional representation in his school.
Although this seems likely to be true, when Enid Lakeman was asked for the source of it she could not remember it. It would be wise to regard it with caution until an original reference can be found.
The first has contents:
The second has contents:
Single transferable vote
The single transferable vote is a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation through preferential voting. Under STV, an elector's vote is initially allocated to his or her most preferred candidate, and then, after candidates have been either elected or eliminated, any surplus or...
in 1819. His son, Rowland Hill
Rowland Hill (postal reformer)
Sir Rowland Hill KCB, FRS was an English teacher, inventor and social reformer. He campaigned for a comprehensive reform of the postal system, based on the concept of penny postage and his solution of prepayment, facilitating the safe, speedy and cheap transfer of letters...
, famous as the originator of the modern postal system, introduced STV in 1840 into the world's first public election, for the Adelaide
Adelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
City Council
City council
A city council or town council is the legislative body that governs a city, town, municipality or local government area.-Australia & NZ:Because of the differences in legislation between the States, the exact definition of a City Council varies...
, in which the principle of proportional representation was applied.
In 1791, Thomas Wright Hill courageously tried to save the apparatus of Dr Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...
from a mob in the Birmingham 'Church and King' riots
Priestley Riots
The Priestley Riots took place from 14 July to 17 July 1791 in Birmingham, England; the rioters' main targets were religious Dissenters, most notably the politically and theologically controversial Joseph Priestley...
of 1791 — the offer was declined.
He was interested in astronomy, being a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and in computers, as is shown by a letter of his to Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage
Charles Babbage, FRS was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer...
, dated March 23, 1836, among the Babbage manuscripts at the British Library, returning some logarithm tables that he had borrowed and adding "How happy I shall be when I can see such a work verified and enlarged by your divine machine".
Hill and education
He started work as a brassfounder, but was more interested in intellectual pursuits, so in 1802 he bought a boys' school on Lionel Street, BirminghamBirmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
moving it to Hill Top, Gough Street. In 1819, it moved again to a new purpose-built school designed by Rowland at Hazelbrook called Hazelwood on Hagley Road in Edgbaston
Edgbaston
Edgbaston is an area in the city of Birmingham in England. It is also a formal district, managed by its own district committee. The constituency includes the smaller Edgbaston ward and the wards of Bartley Green, Harborne and Quinton....
.
From the start the school seems to have been out of the ordinary. In its original prospectus Hill says that "he will make it his study to excite [his pupils'] reasoning powers, and to induce in them habits of voluntary application ... he will always endeavour, by kindness and patience, to secure for himself their affection and esteem"; perhaps not revolutionary aims nowadays, but this was more than 25 years before Thomas Arnold
Thomas Arnold
Dr Thomas Arnold was a British educator and historian. Arnold was an early supporter of the Broad Church Anglican movement...
became headmaster of Rugby
Rugby School
Rugby School is a co-educational day and boarding school located in the town of Rugby, Warwickshire, England. It is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain.-History:...
or Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
wrote Nicholas Nickleby. It is also noteworthy that he was offering "instruction in art and science". How many schools at that date would have thought of including science in their curriculum?
At Hazelwood School, with his sons now bearing a full share in its running, it became a school in which the rules were formed by a committee of the boys, elected by the boys, and enforced by the boys' own law court. Whether or not that is a good way to run a school, the amazing thing is that it existed at all at that time.
In 1827 a London branch of the school was opened at Bruce Castle
Bruce Castle
Bruce Castle is a Grade I listed 16th-century manor house in Lordship Lane, Tottenham, London. It is named after the House of Bruce who formerly owned the land on which it is built. Believed to stand on the site of an earlier building, about which little is known, the current house is one of the...
, Tottenham, and a few years later Hazelwood was sold, but by that time it had been taken over almost entirely by his sons.
Political views and activities
Thomas Hill and his sons had strong political views which, at that time, were certainly radical, but always with the conviction that reforms had to come by persuasion, and constitutionally, not by violence. During the agitation leading up to the Great Reform Act of 1832, the fifth son Frederic Hill was freed from duties at the school to devote his time to an active part in the struggle as part of the Birmingham Union. A letter to his son Edwin, dated May 15, 1832, says "These my dear boy are stirring times ... the enthusiasm and unanimity of the mass who form the Birmingham Union is at once delightful and astonishing. I hope that it will be kept quite within the law. Let the honour of a vigour surmounting that boundary belong to our adversaries; they will not find such forbearance as they may have met with in days past". As his contribution to the cause "I am abstaining from tea, coffee, sugar etc., as taxed articles. Would that the massive unions would concur. The revenue then would soon require parliamentary help, and funds would be reserved for useful purposes. But this kind of passive procedure is too much to hope for as a general procedure".He does not seem to have disapproved of a little political trickery, provided the right side was doing it. Writing to his wife, dated May 11, 1831, about the "patriotic fellows of Haddington" including her brother, he says "Their district has five boroughs which choose a member of parliament by one [delegate] from each borough. Haddington was firm and Jedburgh was firm in the good cause. Dunbar was Rotten and the same was North Berwick. Lauder had seven good men in the council out of sixteen. By excellent management the men of Haddington brought away two councilmen from Lauder and entertained them until the business was accomplished, so that now three delegates out of the five are sound reformers ... It is a glorious victory and a proud thing for us to have so near a relative bearing such a part in it".
In spite of radical views, he evidently thought well of King George III, for in a letter dated Feb 9th 1820, just after George IV's accession, he wrote to his son Matthew "How did your taste accord with bell-ringing and huzzas at the King's proclamation? To me, connected as it was with the death of our late aged and virtuous monarch it was revolting, even to hear of; I saw nothing of the pageantry".
Hill and the single transferable vote
In 1819, Thomas and Rowland were instrumental in founding the Society for Literary and Scientific Improvement of Birmingham. The Society's bylaws include a description of Hill's method of proportional representation, the earliest known version of the single transferable voteSingle transferable vote
The single transferable vote is a voting system designed to achieve proportional representation through preferential voting. Under STV, an elector's vote is initially allocated to his or her most preferred candidate, and then, after candidates have been either elected or eliminated, any surplus or...
:
- X. At the first meeting in April, and also in October, a Committee shall be elected, which shall consist of at least one fifth of the members of the society. The mode of election shall be as follows. A ticket shall be delivered to each member present, with his own name at the head of it, immediately under which he shall write the name of the member whom he may wish to represent him in the Committee. The votes thus given shall be delivered to the president, who, after having assorted them, shall report to the meeting the number of votes given for each nominee. Every one who has five votes shall be declared a member of the committee; if there are more than five votes given to any one person, the surplus votes, (to be selected by lot) shall be returned to the electors whose names they bear, for the purpose of making other nominations, and this process shall be repeated till no surplus votes remain, when all the inefficient votes shall be returned to the respective electors, and the same routine shall be gone through a second time, and also a third time if necessary; when if a number is elected, equal in all to one half of the number of which the committee shoud consist, they shall be a committee; and if at the close of the meeing the number is not filled up, by unanimous votes of five for each member of the committee, given by those persons whose votes were returned to them at the end of the third election, then this committee shall have the power, and shall be required, to choose persons to fill up their number; and the constituents of each member so elected shall, if necessary, be determined by lot. …
Hill's grandson (and Rowland's nephew) George Birkbeck Norman Hill
George Birkbeck Norman Hill
George Birkbeck Norman Hill , English editor and author, son of Arthur Hill, headmaster of Bruce Castle School, was born at Bruce Castle, Tottenham, Middlesex. He dropped his third name, Norman, publishing as just George Birkbeck Hill; to family and friends he was known as Birkbeck, not as George...
wrote, "The plan of election had been devised by his [Rowland's] father who … was strongly in favour of the representation of minorities."
In 1821, Hill used an informal version of proportional representation in his school.
- …[Hill's] pupils were asked to elect a committee by standing beside the boy they liked best. This first produced a number of unequal groups, but soon the boys in the largest groups came to the conclusion that not all of them were actually necessary for the election of their favourite and some moved on to help another candidate, while on the other hand the few supporters of an unpopular boy gave him up as hopeless and transferred themselves to the candidate they considered the next best. The final result was that a number of candidates equal to the number required for the committee were each surrounded by the same number of supporters, with only two or three boys left over who were dissatisfied with all those elected. This is an admirable example of the use of STV.
Although this seems likely to be true, when Enid Lakeman was asked for the source of it she could not remember it. It would be wise to regard it with caution until an original reference can be found.
Posthumous publications
Following his death various papers that he had left behind were published in two booklets.The first has contents:
- Notes of Mr. Hill's Ancestors (by himself, unfinished)
- Autobiography (unfinished)
- Continuation of Mr. Hill's Life, by his Son, Matthew Davenport Hill
- Selections from a Diary kept by Mr. Frederic Hill
- Brief Memoirs
- Lines written in an Album
The second has contents:
- Brief Memoir
- Lecture on the Articulation of Speech
- Phonotypy by Modification
- Phonotypy. Another plan
- Short-hand
- Definition of a Straight Line
- Numerical Nomenclature
- Scheme for conducting elections
- Easy Calculations for Matching the Days of the Month with the Days of the Week in Dates
Family
Thomas Wright Hill married Sarah Lea (1765–1842) on 29 July 1791 at St Martin's Church, Birmingham and had 8 children:- Matthew Davenport HillMatthew Davenport HillMatthew Davenport Hill was an English lawyer and penologist.He was born at Birmingham, where his father, Thomas Wright Hill, for long conducted a private school. He was a brother of Sir Rowland Hill. He acted as assistant in his father's school, but in 1819 was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn...
(1792–1872), the criminal law reformer - Edwin Hill (1793–1876), mechanical inventor and writer on currency
- Rowland HillRowland Hill (postal reformer)Sir Rowland Hill KCB, FRS was an English teacher, inventor and social reformer. He campaigned for a comprehensive reform of the postal system, based on the concept of penny postage and his solution of prepayment, facilitating the safe, speedy and cheap transfer of letters...
(1795–1879), the postal reformer - Arthur Hill (1798–1885), headmaster of Bruce Castle SchoolBruce Castle SchoolBruce Castle School, at Bruce Castle, Tottenham, was a progressive school for boys established in 1827 as an extension of Rowland Hill's Hazelwood School at Edgbaston...
- Caroline Hill (1800–1877), became Mrs Clark and emigrated to Adelaide, South Australia
- Frederic HillFrederic HillFrederic Hill was a Prison Inspector in Scotland and England, and a social and economic reformer.-Biography:Frederic Hill was born at Hilltop, a house at the summit of Gough Street, Birmingham, the sixth child of Thomas Wright Hill and Sarah, his wife, whose maiden name was Lea...
(1803–1896), inspector of prisons, assistant secretary of Post Office - William Howard Hill (1805–1830)
- Sarah Hill (1807–1840)
Sources
- Science and Education: A Note - W. H. G. Armytage, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 12, No. 2 (Dec., 1957), pp. 226–229
- JSTOR - British Journal of Educational Studies February 1980 (first page)
- Originals of the letters quoted (other than that in the British Library) are in the possession of I.D. Hill (great-great-great grandson of T.W. Hill)