Frank Harrison Hill

Baptised on 4 March 1830 at Boston, Lincolnshire, he was younger son of George Hill, merchant there, by his wife Betsy, sister of Pishey Thompson.

Educated at Boston grammar school, Hill entered as a divinity student the Unitarian New College, Manchester, where he studied under James Martineau.

[1] Hill is thought to have owed his introduction to journalism to Henry Dunckley and Richard Holt Hutton.

On the death in 1861 of James Simms, editor of the Northern Whig, the journal of the Ulster liberals, he took up the post in Belfast; at the time, the American Civil War was influencing party politics at Westminster, and, alone of Irish journalists, Hill supported the Union.

At the suggestion of Frank Finlay, who was proprietor of the Northern Whig and his wife's brother, Hill was summoned at the end of 1865 to London to become assistant editor of the Daily News.

Hill continued to give steady support to William Ewart Gladstone's administration, and the journal became an influential party organ.

[1] Under Hill's editorship and the management of John Richard Robinson, the Daily News attained further influence and popularity.

Sir Henry Lucy, and Frances Power Cobbe were occasional writers or auxiliary members of the staff.