[1] Hill was educated at a part-time school in Stradbroke before joining the clerical division of Victorian Railways.

He served as stationmaster at Elphinstone, during which time he would walk several miles to Castlemaine to attend evening classes.

He led a movement to supply cheaper superphosphate to farmers and served as chairman of the Phosphate Co-operative Company of Australia.

[1] On 20 September 1919, at the by-election caused by the death of Albert Palmer, he won the House of Representatives Division of Echuca as a Victorian Farmers' Union candidate.

During his period of office he commenced the standardisation of the railway gauges by the construction of the North Coast railway line from Kyogle, to South Brisbane, the construction of the rail line from Oodnadatta, South Australia, to Alice Springs by Commonwealth Railways, the introduction of a Federal aid road scheme—which provided funding to the states for road construction—and the building of the Hume Dam, which he promoted as president of the inter-governmental River Murray Water Commission.