Dr John Hill was the son of the Reverend Theophilus Hill and his wife Mary. John was born in Peterborough in 1714 and baptised at St John the Baptist, Peterborough Parish Church, on 17 November that year. Even by the bizarre standards of the 18^th century John appears to have been a very odd character. At different times, he was an apothecary, an actor, a theatre critic, and according to the poet Christopher Smart, an ‘arch dunce’!

A non-contemporary, Percy Fitzgerald (an art & theatre critic) said of John that he had: ‘scurrilous courage on paper and had no less abject pusillanimity (meaning he is hopeless and weak spirited) when called to account for his outrages’. He (Hill) had a libellous periodical, called “The Inspector,” which he wrote entirely himself, which earned him in a year no less than fifteen hundred pounds. In this organ he assumes the airs of a public critic and could air his own opinions … with an amusing vanity’.

However, John certainly merits more serious consideration, for he played an important role in the mid-18^th century as a theorist on theatre techniques and acting. His book “The Actor” published in 1750 was a translation of Le Comédien (first printed in 1747) by Pierre Rémond de Sainte Albine. A second edition of “The Actor” was published in 1755 but this time it was translated back into French as “Garrick, ou, Les Acteurs Anglais”. The book was well received because of its theories on acting. John argued that as much skill should go into portraying a soldier as a monarch, a bit part as a romantic lead, and maintained that ‘playing is a science, and should be studied as a such’ and in consequence ‘a perfection in the player is the hiding himself in his character’.

A contemporary writes of John that: “Not only was….. [he] industrious and energetic, but his writings show him to have been a man of real ability and genius”.

During his lifetime John was viewed as conceited, eccentric and keen on self-publicity and because of this seems to have gained few friends. His quest for wealth and recognition appear to have been marred by these frailties. Although, in retrospect John had many careers: apothecary, practical botanist, actor, gardener (he helped lay out a botanic garden at Kew and was gardener at Kensington Palace) and wrote 76 miscellaneous botanical works.

Recent research seems to indicate that John was not the quack many portrayed him as, because in his 1759 publication he suggests a link between tobacco and cancer.

John’s huge botanical work “The Vegetable System” published 1759-1775 runs to 26 volumes and contains 1600 engravings of 26,000 different plants. It is considered as one of the most extensive botanical volumes of the 18^th century.

In 1774 the King of Sweden bestowed upon John, the Order of the Vasa (Knight of the Polar Star) in recognition of his services to agriculture. Thus, Dr John Hill became Sir John Hill. Though expert and prolific in many subjects his life demonstrates the anxieties and paradoxes that existed within Georgian urban life in the 1750s, especially in pleasures and rivalries. Sir John Hill died on 21 November 1775.