[citation needed] George Birkbeck Hill was educated in his father's school and at Pembroke College, Oxford,[1] where he made lasting friendships with Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris.

[1] On his retirement from teaching he devoted himself to the study of 18th-century English literature, and established his reputation as the most learned commentator on the works of Samuel Johnson.

Remaining true to his family's radical roots, Hill was a strong supporter of the Liberal Party and actively campaigned on behalf of Gladstone in the mid-1880s.

Birkbeck Hill's wife Annie was the sister of Sir John Scott (1841–1904), who was judicial advisor to the Khedive from 1891 to 1898 and a close personal friend of Charles George Gordon.

Hill and his wife are buried at Aspley Guise, and he bequeathed his Johnsonian library to Pembroke College, Oxford.