Rowland Hill: Victorian Genius and Benefactor

Quiller Press. Very Good/Very Good. 1989. Hard Cover. 8vo 1870948327 Dust jacket complete, unclipped. Original cloth boards with bright gilt titling on spine. No ownership marks. Plates. 192 pages clean and tight. Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.7 x 2.5 cm. 'Rowland Hill's story is incredibly broad in its ramifications and world-wide in its connections. The book is written with a lightness of touch and sharpness of vision that rivet the reader's attention as the narrative moves along.' So ends the foreword by Lord Butterfield of Stechford, recently Vice-Chancellor of Cambridge University, who hails the book as the very readable story of a true genius and benefactor. Hill is best remembered for his introduction of penny postage and his creation of the modern postal service. As Dr Frank Rhodes, the President of Cornell University, USA, reminds us in his equally supportive foreword, 'That he did this initially without any formal administrative responsibility, and in the teeth of sustained and organised opposition from those in positions of seniority only adds to the significance of his achievements.' With the book's publication coinciding with the 150th anniversary of the introduction of his 'penny black', it is right this his main claim to the word 'genius' is given due emphasis in Colin Hey's treatment. However the Post Office was by no means Hill's only claim to fame. His foundation of the Hazlewood School in Birmingham contributed much to modern secondary education throughout the world in which his radical breakthrough in curriculum, method and discipline revealed Rowland Hill as being at least thirty years ahead of Dr Arnold of Rugby as an educational thinker and practitioner. In addition to this his astonishingly skilful supervision of the colonisation of South Australia and his decisive direction and rescue of the near bankrupt London and Brighton Railway would each rank as pinnacles in most people's lives. .