William Hillhouse FLS (17 December 1850 – 27 January 1910) was the first Professor of Botany at the University of Birmingham (1882–1909).
[4] He was President of the Birmingham Natural History Society and the King's Heath, Bearwood and Moseley Institutes.
He was educated at Bedford Modern School,[6][7] He became an Assistant Master at his old school where he started to take up botany in conjunction with Edward Mann Langley and Joseph Reynolds Green, both at that time resident in Bedford, under the informal tuition of Samuel Hoppus Adams.
[4] In 1877 Hillhouse decided to devote his energies to the study of botany and went up to Trinity College, Cambridge.
[4] He was President of the Birmingham Natural History Society and the King's Heath, Bearwood and Moseley Institutes.