- John Hill (British politician)
John Edward Bernard Hill (
13 November 1912 –6 December 2007 ) was a barrister, farmer, and British Conservative Party politician. He served asMember of Parliament for South Norfolk for 19 years, from 1955 to 1974. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/12/20/db2002.xml Obituary in "The Daily Telegraph", 20 December 9 November 2007] ] [http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article3339084.ece Obituary in "The Independent", 15 January 2008] ] [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3161844.ece Obituary in "The Times", 10 January 2008] ] He was also of the UK's first MEPs, serving from 1973-74.Hill was the only son of Captain Robert Hill, an officer in the
Cambridgeshire Regiment . He was educated atCharterhouse School andMerton College, Oxford , where he gained a football Blue in 1934. After two year travelling in Asia and the Middle East, he became was abarrister , called to the Bar atInner Temple in 1938. He was commissioned into 64th Field Regiment,Royal Artillery in 1939, on the outbreak of theSecond World War , and was attached for some time to the skiing unit of the5th Battalion Scots Guards . From 1942 served as an air observation pilot, flying spotter planes in Tunisia withNo. 651 Squadron RAF . He was severely wounded, and invalided out of the Army in 1945 with the rank ofCaptain .After the war, he took up farming, buying a convert|700|acre|km2|sing=on farm near
Halesworth inSuffolk . He was a councillor onWainford Rural District Council ,Suffolk from 1946-53, and a senior member of variousEast Anglia n river and flood defence boards. He served as a governor ofCharterhouse School from 1958-90, and on the council of theUniversity of East Anglia from 1975-1982.Hill was elected to the House of Commons on
13 January 1955 , in aby-election caused by the expulsion of the sitting Conservative MP, Captain Peter Baker, after Baker's conviction for uttering, forgery and fraud and subsequent imprisonment for seven years. Hill scraped home with a majority reduced to only 865. He held then seat later that year at the 1955 general election, and was re-elected in four subsequent general elections (in 1959, 1964, 1966 and 1970) ["Times Guide to the House of Commons ", London, "The Times", 1970 ISSN 0082439902] . His majority fell to only 119 in 1966. He did not stand in the February 1974 general election and was succeeded as MP byJohn MacGregor .In Parliament, he concentrated mainly on the agricultural interests of his mainly rural constituency. He was elected to the executive of the
1922 Committee in November 1956, in the aftermath of theSuez Crisis , and he became an assistant government whip in January 1959 alongsideWillie Whitelaw . While an MP, he pressed for the introduction of a small clock in the corner of the internal monitors, which tell everyone within thePalace of Westminster how long a member has been speaking.He served as a
Lord Commissioner of the Treasury from 1960-64 and as Opposition spokesman on education and science briefly in 1965-66. He was later active on the education and agricultureselect committee s. He supportedEdward Heath 's policy of joining the European Economic Community, and was a delegate to theCouncil of Europe and theWestern European Union . When the UK joined the EEC in 1973, Hill was appointed as aMember of the European Parliament (MEP), and served from January 1973 until July 1974. At that time, MEPs were appointed by national parliaments, rather than being directly elected.He concentrated on farming in later life. He collected British art, particularly paintings by
Samuel Palmer . He married Edith Luard (née Maxwell) in 1944. His wife died in 1995. He was survived by their adopted daughter.References
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