29 Facts About Rowland Hill

Sir Rowland Hill, KCB, FRS was an English teacher, inventor and social reformer.

Rowland Hill campaigned for a comprehensive reform of the postal system, based on the concept of Uniform Penny Post and his solution of pre-payment, facilitating the safe, speedy and cheap transfer of letters.

Rowland Hill made the case that if letters were cheaper to send, people, including the poorer classes, would send more of them, thus eventually profits would go up.

Rowland Hill was born in Blackwell Street, Kidderminster, Worcestershire, England.

Rowland Hill was descended of the family of his name sake Sir Rowland Hill, the Tudor statesman who the settlement that published the Geneva Bible.

Rowland Hill worked at the Assay Office in Birmingham and painted landscapes in his spare time.

The school, which Rowland Hill designed, included innovations such as a science laboratory, a swimming pool, and forced air heating.

In 1833, the original Hazelwood School closed and its educational system was continued at the new Bruce Castle School, of which Rowland Hill was headmaster from 1827 until 1839.

In 1832 Rowland Hill published a tract called Home colonies: sketch of a plan for the gradual extinction of pauperism, and for the diminution of crime, based on a Dutch model.

Rowland Hill then served from 1833 until 1839 as secretary of the South Australian Colonization Commission, which worked successfully to establish a settlement without convicts at what is today Adelaide.

Rowland Hill, like his father, was a fan of proportional representation.

Rowland Hill first started to take a serious interest in postal reforms in 1835.

Rowland Hill commenced a detailed study of these documents and this led him to publish, in early 1837, a pamphlet called Post Office Reform its Importance and Practicability.

Rowland Hill submitted a copy of this to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Thomas Spring Rice, on 4 January 1837.

Rowland Hill's study reported his findings and those of Charles Babbage that most of the costs in the postal system were not for transport, but rather for laborious handling procedures at the origins and the destinations.

Rowland Hill first presented his proposal to the government in 1837.

In 1839 Rowland Hill was given a two-year contract to run the new system.

From 1839 to 1842, Rowland Hill lived at 1 Orme Square, Bayswater, London, and there is an LCC plaque there in his honour.

Rowland Hill continued at the Post Office until the Conservative Party won the 1841 General Election.

Rowland Hill lowered the fares from London to Brighton, expanded the routes, offered special excursion trains, and made the commute comfortable for passengers.

Rowland Hill became a member of the influential Political Economy Club, founded by David Ricardo and other classical economists, but now including many powerful businessmen and political figures.

Rowland Hill was made Secretary to the Postmaster General, and then Secretary to the Post Office from 1854 until 1864.

Rowland Hill was made a Fellow of the Royal Society and awarded an honorary degree from University of Oxford.

For twenty years his next-door neighbour on Hampstead Green was the Gothic revival architect Samuel Sanders Teulon, who designed St Stephen's Church, Rosslyn Rowland Hill, facing their houses.

Rowland Hill was still living at Bartram House when he died in 1879.

Rowland Hill is buried in Westminster Abbey; there is a memorial to him on his family grave in Highgate Cemetery.

In recognition of his contributions to the development of the modern postal system, Rowland Hill is commemorated at the Universal Postal Union, the UN agency charged with regulating the international postal system.

Rowland Hill's name appears on one of the two large meeting halls at the UPU headquarters in Bern, Switzerland.

Later, on his death centenary, an omnibus issue of stamps commemorating Rowland Hill was produced by about 80 countries.