"[1] Born in West Ham, London, Hill was one of 12 children in a family with strong socialist traditions.
[1] He served with the Royal Marine Engineers during World War I, joining the United Society of Boilermakers and Iron and Steel Shipbuilders in 1916.
[4] By 1939, Hill was the London delegate to the executive committee of the Boilermakers, and in 1948 he was elected to the General Council of the Trades Union Congress (TUC).
The cloth cap "image" he created did not fit into their concept of responsible and respectable trade unionism and they regarded his ideas of class warfare as an anachronism in the mid-twentieth century.
[6] Following a succession of demarcation disputes, Hill led a 1962 merger with two other unions with large presences in shipyards, the Associated Blacksmiths, Forge and Smithy Workers' Society and the Shipconstructors and Shipwrights' Association, remaining leader of the renamed "Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers, Shipwrights, Blacksmiths and Structural Workers".