Edwin Hill was a Victorian postal official, the older brother of Rowland Hill, who invented a mechanical system to make envelopes and who campaigned for legal and political change.

Early life

Hill was born in Birmingham

Birmingham

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...

 and educated at a school run by his father Thomas Wright Hill where he also taught when older. Later he worked at the Assay Office in Birmingham and then at a Birmingham brass-rolling mill where he became the manager.

In 1819 he married Anne Bucknall and they had ten children.

In 1827 he moved to Tottenham, London, where he managed a branch of the family school business while Rowland taught.

The Stamp Office

In 1840 Hill became the first British Controller of Stamps and he remained in that position until 1872.

Inventions

Hill was an inveterate inventor of equipment to help the stamp department. He invented a mechanical system to make envelopes which was shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851, the patent for which was bought by Warren de la Rue

Warren de la Rue

Warren De la Rue was a British astronomer and chemist, most famous for his pioneering work in astronomical photography.-Biography:...

to whom the machine was attributed. On his retirement a Treasury minute praised Hill's "...resourcefulness and considerable mechanical ability which had contributed so much to the success of the new postage scheme".

Campaigns

Hill was one of the signatories to the notice calling a meeting on 22 January 1817 to petition for parliamentary reform and he campaigned for changes to the law relating to the handling of stolen property.

Further reading

• Hill, W.E. An account of the Julian Hill family. London, 1938. (privately printed)