Richard L. Hills

Richard Leslie Hills MBE (1 September 1936 – 10 May 2019) was an English historian and clergyman who wrote extensively on the history of technology, particularly steam power.

In National Service, he obtained a commission as 2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery, ending up with the 26 Field Regiment at Folkestone during the Suez Crisis.

[1] While at Cambridge, he acquired a 1924 Lancia Lambda in need of restoration,[1] and was introduced to Mr. and Mrs. Kenny who allowed impecunious students to use workshop facilities near Long Melford while they were trying to preserve the Stretham Old Engine that once drained the Waterbeach Level.

[1] Through the support of Professor Rupert Hall at Imperial, Donald Cardwell offered Hills a post as research assistant in his History of Science Department at the University of Manchester Institute of Science & Technology (UMIST) to study the history of textile technology;[1] from 1965 to 1968, he studied a PhD at UMIST, living for a time near Hyde, Cheshire.

Because he had been collecting exhibits such as the archives of locomotive manufacturer Beyer, Peacock & Company and many more, Hills was offered the post of lecturer in charge.

It contained displays of steam and internal combustion engines, paper-making, printing, spinning and weaving, scientific instruments, clocks, electrical exhibits such as wireless sets, archives and much more.

The museum's chief technician was Frank Wightman, an experienced millwright, with a passion for the steam engines that drove the textile mills.

Offered a steam beam engine of around 1830 (like those that would have driven the first cotton spinning mills), he decided to use Wightman's expertise and dismantle it for storage.

He had to supervise the construction of foundations then the actual erection of the mass of separate parts (total weight around 400 tons).

For these engines to run again, there had to be installed services such as steam, water, condensing apparatus, drains as well as overhead cranes.

A cousin, Elspeth Quayle, who was a member of the Manx House of Keys, introduced him to their Minister of Transport and so was arranged the return to Manchester of the Beyer, Peacock-built Pender.

Perhaps Hills' greatest achievement was securing and organising the repatriation of a South African Railways GL Class Garratt articulated locomotive.

[8][9] While working as curate at St Michael and All Angels Church, Mottram in Longdendale, Hills met Bernice Pickford[1] and they were married there in August 2008.