Hill, Edward (1741–1830), physician, was born 14 May 1741 at Ballyporeen, Co. Tipperary, eldest child among five sons and two daughters of Thomas Hill, Esq.; little else is known of his family background. After his father's death his family moved to Cashel, where he was educated at the classical school before boarding at the diocesan school of Clonmel, Co. Tipperary. He entered TCD (1761), was elected scholar (1763), won prizes, and graduated BA (1765), MB (1771), and MD (1773). The beauty of his handwriting was recognised when the board of TCD asked him in 1766 to write the duke of Bedford's testimonium, for which he was paid five guineas.
Admitted licentiate (1775) and elected fellow (1775) of the (R)K&QCPI, he served the college as registrar, censor, treasurer, and examiner of apothecaries' shops, and was president six times between 1782 and 1813. Appointed lecturer (1773) in TCD, he was subsequently professor of botany (1785–1800) and became regius professor of physic (1781–1830) when William Clement (qv) resigned so that Hill might succeed him. As president of the College of Physicians in 1783, he collaborated with TCD in reconstituting the school of physic on ‘liberal principles’, which resulted in the school of physic act (1785).
A major controversy dividing the College of Physicians was whether a clinical hospital, favoured by Robert Perceval (qv), or a botanic garden was the more important for the development of the medical school. In TCD Hill had inherited a barren, rat-infested physic garden; he repeatedly tried to remedy this situation and establish a first-class garden, botany being a central subject in the medical curriculum. He appealed to both colleges and to the Dublin Society, appeared before a parliamentary committee, and was finally advised by the provost of TCD in 1795 to rent land at Harold's Cross, south of Dublin, in trust for the university, and in the expectation of funds being made available from Sir Patrick Dun's estate. However, under the terms of the school of physic act of 1800, provision was made for a hospital but not for a garden. A prohibition from holding two professorships resulted in Hill's being forced to make a choice, and he resigned from the chair of botany. His ambitions frustrated by the act, Hill felt deeply resentful and believed that he was the object of persecution, particularly at the hands of Perceval, a position he made clear in his Address to the students of physic (1803) and subsequently to the president and fellows of the College of Physicians (1805). His attempts to recover from TCD the money that he had spent on the garden only succeeded in 1803 after a trial at the court of king's bench. In 1811, at the request of the College of Physicians, he undertook the first survey of the lands of Sir Patrick Dun's estate, and subsequently presented a detailed report on their condition.
He compiled, with Robert Perceval and Edmund Cullen (d. 1804), the first Dublin pharmacopoeia for the College of Physicians, of which 100 copies were printed in 1794, though it was never officially sanctioned by the college and later a committee (of which Hill was not a member) was established for its revision. From 1773 to 1830 he was physician to Mercer's Hospital, Dublin; he attended all board meetings but rarely appeared on the wards, describing it as ‘a dangerous and arduous duty’ (Hill, Address … (1803), 35); he was also physician to the Hospital for Incurables, Lazar Hill, Dublin, until he discovered by looking in the Almanack that he had been replaced by Perceval.
Interested in printing, he was granted the use of the Printing House by the board of TCD (1774–84), but after being joined in 1779 by Joseph Hill (apparently not a relation), who printed tracts that were considered to be seditious, he was asked to leave. An accomplished scholar, he was knowledgeable in Greek, Latin, French, and Italian. He was also a bibliophile – his library, which he sold by auction in 1816, consisted of 1,800 books, which included eighteen incunabula, over a hundred books printed in the early sixteenth century, Greek and Latin classics, Hebrew bibles, and French and Italian literature.
His great love was for the works of John Milton: ‘When cheerful and devoid of care I have resorted to them for amusement and instruction, and they have contributed often to console me in the hour of sorrow’ (Lyons, 61). As a young man he began a new edition of Paradise Lost; though it was never completed, he wrote a prolegomena, a critical examination of French translations, a word index, and descriptions of the engraved portraits of Milton and the plates used in several editions. He was unable to find a publisher; his manuscript ‘Materials for an edition of Paradise Lost’ is preserved in the library of TCD (MS 629/1–5). Also unpublished is ‘The history of physic’, a description of medicine in antiquity up to the time of Celsus, which was presented to the RCSI in 1843 by his nephew Thomas Hill.
Appointed as Dun's librarian (1819–26) by the college, Hill catalogued in his meticulous handwriting its entire collection in alphabetical order of authors' names, giving date and place of publication of each book and its place on the library shelf. His interests included architecture; a drawing of a Greek temple, which he submitted in 1814 for the competition for the Wellington monument, is preserved in the Library of the Statistical Society of Ireland.
He died 31 October 1830 at his home in York St., Dublin. His wife (name and date of marriage unknown) predeceased him; they had at least one son. Hill's portrait, by an unknown artist, was presented to the RCPI in 1914 by his great-granddaughter, a Miss Curtis.