Sir George Hill, K.C.B

Abstract

GEORGE FRANCIS HILL, numismatist, and director of the British Museum during 1931-36, youngest son of Samuel John Hill and grandson of Micaiah Hill, both missionaries in India, was born at Berhampur on December 22, 1867, and educated at Blackheath School, University College School, University College, London, and Merton College, Oxford, where he obtained first classes in Classical Moderations and Literae Humaniores, and under the influence of Prof. Percy Gardner devoted himself to the study of Greek coins. He entered the British Museum in 1893, where Barclay Head had recently published his Historia Numorum, still the standard text-book in that subject; and edited no less than six volumes of the Catalogue of Greek Coins. The first of these, on the Coins of Cyprus (1897), was followed many years later by a general history of that island, the third volume of which, published in the present year, brings the story to the Turkish conquest in 1571. Meanwhile, he did valuable service as editor of the Journal of Hellenic Studies and of the Numismatic. Chronicle, edited a handbook of Sources for Greek History, and extended his special studies to Italian coins and medals, and the practical art of die-engraving. His great Corpus of Italian Medals before Cellini is his monument in this field.