[1] Hillman was born on 13 November 1848 in Stratford, Essex (other sources say 30 December 1847 in Lewisham, Kent), where his father, also called William, was a shoemaker; his mother was Sarah Stitchbury.
He became an apprentice in the engineering works of John Penn & Co. at Greenwich together with his friend James Starley, who became known as "the father of the cycle industry".
Hillman and Starley moved to the expanding industrial area of the English Midlands, where they were employed by the Coventry Sewing Machine Company.
Sales of sewing machines had declined, and to compensate the company had become the first British manufacturers of bicycles,[1] using designs based on French "boneshakers".
His success made him a millionaire, and allowed him to move to Abingdon House, an "impressive home" in Stoke Aldermoor, now a suburb of Coventry.